The new £600k entrance to Oldham that will aim to make the town centre 'more welcoming'
Oldham has secured a £600k grant from United Utilities to create a new entrance to the town centre, aiming to make it more welcoming and accessible. The project, Snipe Garden, will replace a former alleyway with a vibrant community space featuring benches, plants, and improved drainage. This is part of wider efforts to revitalise Oldham, including refurbishing historic buildings and relocating Tommyfield Market traders to a new venue in Spindles Shopping Centre.
Oldham has secured £600,000 to complete a new gateway into its town centre, replacing a “dingy alleyway” beside a demolished 130-year-old pub with a planted public space designed to draw people off the bus interchange and into the shops.
The cash, drawn from United Utilities’ green-recovery fund, will finish drainage and landscaping works at Snipe Garden, the council-built community plot on the site of the former Snipe Inn that now links the main bus station to Henshaw Street.
Council leader Arooj Shah accepted the grant at Monday night’s (3 March) cabinet meeting.
Benches, hardy planting and a broad, level path have already replaced the narrow, unlit passageway that once funnelled passengers from the interchange; final works are expected to wrap up within months.
Town-hall chiefs say the entrance is a deliberate attempt to counter forecasts that Oldham’s high streets could “die out” as shoppers tighten budgets and shift online.
The garden is one strand of a wider rescue package that includes the refurbishment of the Old Library and Old Town Hall and a new indoor home for Tommyfield Market traders, due to open in an extension to the Spindles Shopping Centre later this year.
Source: Read original article