A four-year campaign has paid off with improvements finally being made to what has been labelled a 'problem' junction.
The White Horse junction in Westhoughton is notorious for congestion.
And now money will be invested to tackle the traffic build up
The junction – named so due to the pub that sits upon it – joins the busy Bolton Road and A6 Manchester Road which for years has caused a build up of traffic in multiple directions.
Traffic lights will now be upgrade to ease congestion there.
Cllr Bernadette Eckersley-Fallon’s has long been calling for filter arrows to be installed onto the traffic lights to help ease the blockages the existing system causes.
“You can literally have a tail back of traffic right back into Chew Moor village coming from the Bolton Road side,” she said.
“In a morning you have a queue right the way down onto the high street past the high school so obviously you’ve got lots of pollution there right outside.
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“There are also two children’s nurseries."
Cllr Eckersley-Fallon ran a poll in February 2019 asking residents whether they agreed that the junction needed filters on the traffic lights.
The results, she says, were a “unanimous yes”.
“There’s been loads of accidents there,” she added. “Cars jumping lights. There’s been smashes. There’s a few serious accidents where people have been taken to hospital.”
Cllr Eckersley-Fallon made the junction a priority since she was elected as Westhoughton and Chew Moor councillor in May 2019.
“I explained to the developers that it’s important with regards to infrastructure because we are gridlocked in Westhoughton with all the housebuilding.
“There’s only a couple of roads in and a couple of roads out and you’re building a thousand-plus houses, most houses have two cars at least.”
Having successfully bid for funds, Transport for Greater Manchester has been working with Bolton Council to arrange the installation of upgraded lights with filters and loop detection - this detects when a car is waiting so the lights can change accordingly.
“One of the sides of the junction is a single carriageway where the other three are dual carriage ways where you’ve got a right hand turn only so hopefully the detection loop will be put on the single carriage way,” Cllr Eckersley-Fallon said.
“I’m delighted, to be honest.
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“It’s been a long time getting there but it will make such a difference on the flow of traffic in and out of Westhoughton.”
The councillor says she does not have a fixed date that the work will be completed by but did says that she expects it will be operational in 2023.
If you have a story or something you would like to highlight in the community, please email me at lewis.finney@newsquest.co.uk or DM me on Twitter @lewisfinney18.
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