One of Oldham's best-known chippies is leaving Tommyfield Market after 30 years and moving to a new home in the town centre.

Levers held a soft opening at its new premises on Friday, August 21, with the Mayor of Oldham, Councillor Pam Byrne, joining the team to mark the occasion.

The new shop is in the former BrightHouse unit opposite Home Bargains and next to Shoe Zone. It will officially open to the public on Wednesday, August 26.

Until then, customers can continue to visit the existing Levers shop, which has occupied one of the outdoor-facing units at Tommyfield for the last 30 years.

The move takes Levers away from its familiar spot, but the business remains rooted in a town with a strong claim to fame in Britain's love affair with chips. A blue plaque outside the current shop records that the first chips are believed to have been fried in Oldham around 1860, and that the origins of fish and chip shops, and ultimately the fast-food industry, can be traced back to the town.

Levers itself does not date back that far. Its Tommyfield Market shop opened in 1991, but its location has helped keep the story of Oldham's place in fish and chip history alive.

The tale has another local connection a few miles away in Mossley. John Lees is believed to have taken inspiration from the fried chips being sold at Tommyfield before establishing a business on Stamford Street in Mossley around 1863, laying claim to being among the country's earliest fish and chip shops.

More than 160 years later, fish and chips remain one of Britain's best-known dishes, having provided an affordable meal through world wars, recessions and generations of changing tastes. Now Levers is taking that tradition into a new era as it swaps its long-standing Tommyfield home for a prominent new shop in the heart of Oldham town centre.