Longdendale Bypass

The Longdendale Bypass (also known as the A57/A628 Mottram-in-Longdendale, Hollingworth & Tintwistle Bypass) is a long-planned road scheme in England by the Highways Agency. The aim is to alleviate traffic congestion on the A57 road/A628 road/A616 road routes that presently pass through the villages. There is both support and opposition for this long-planned scheme which will pass through the valley of Longdendale and part of the Peak District National Park.

After nearly fifty years, part of the road scheme – the Mottram Bypass and Glossop Spur – was approved by the Highways Agency on 2 December 2014. By March 2016, despite the intervention of most local MPs, the government still will not commit to a start date. On 4 March 2016, a Parliamentary Petition was started, with the aim of gathering 10,000 signatures within six months to ask the government to name a start date.

The existing A628 trunk road connects the M67 from Manchester to the M1 in South Yorkshire. A single-carriageway road through the villages of Mottram in Longdendale, Hollingworth and Tintwistle and through the Peak District National Park, it is used by a relatively large number of heavy goods vehicles. Supporters of the scheme say that the A628 is one of the most congested A-road routes in the country, with high volumes of traffic (including HGVs) using a road which is totally unsuitable for the volume and nature of traffic it carries and that there is no viable alternative to a bypass. A survey in 2010 found that the junction of the A57 and M67 was the most congested in Manchester.

Concern has been raised that the scheme would not have improved safety on the Woodhead Pass, where the majority of serious accidents occur.

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