A major new link road is near completion but may not be enough to deal with traffic as a major housing development gathers pace, a local councillor has said.

The Horwich Loco Works spine road is part of a major house building project that ultimately be made up of more than 2,000 new houses off Chorley New Road.

The new road is expected to help reduce traffic for the time being, but representatives have warned that this may not be enough as building works continue in the years ahead.

Cllr David Grant, of Horwich South and Blackrod, said: “Without the link road, Horwich Loco Works just wouldn’t be feasible.

“It will temporarily reduce traffic but as it stands there are going to be around 2,200 houses on the Horwich Loco Works developments.

The Bolton News: An artist's impression of some of the new homesAn artist's impression of some of the new homes (Image: Bellway Homes)

“So as it stands the link road will help reduce traffic on Chorley New Road but congestion is still going to increase over the next 15 or 20 years as they build the houses.”

Cllr Grant said the road was made possible when he and his party, then a community group, invited Bolton West MP Chris Green and then communities secretary Sajid Javid to the site.

After the visit in 2018 the government granted around £12M worth of funding for the link road.

The completed development will be one of the most significant the borough of Bolton has seen in recent years, with the current phase of the scheme having been approved in October 2021.

But Cllr Grant said that given the scale of the development, which will mean thousands more cars on the nearby roads, greater action will need to be taken.

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He said that improvements should be made to the Beehive Roundabout and that nearby Station Road should potentially be widened.

On a recent visit to the new road, Mr Green said that hoped it would bring traffic down when finished but that he was open to other ideas about reducing congestion.

Speaking from the site, Mr Green said: “Having invited the Secretary of State to Horwich to secure £12m for the Loco Works spine road, it is good to see even more progress being made.

“When the road is complete, it will go a good way to reducing traffic on Chorley New Road, the Beehive roundabout and more widely around Horwich which I know frustrates so many local residents on their daily commute.”