This week saw some welcome progress on everyone’s favourite seemingly indefinite infrastructure project, the Mottram bypass.

I have long been in favour of the bypass, from my days as Hollingworth and Mottram resident and Longdendale councillor onwards. Getting it done has continued to be a top priority as your Member of Parliament.

I am grateful to have support in this effort and the endless meetings and correspondence it has entailed from the Longdendale councillors past and present, the Tameside council leadership, and from my counterpart over the border in Derbyshire, Jon Pearce, Labour’s Parliamentary Candidate for High Peak. It is helpful, too, that there remains broad cross-party support for getting the bypass built.

The M67 abruptly halting in the midst of scenic single lance villages was an unforgivable act of historic bad planning, and Longdendale being notorious as a traffic jam pretty much ever since is as bad for local health, wellbeing and convenience as it is for the regional economy.

When I first became an MP in 2010, the status of the bypass was essentially going nowhere fast. Getting it reinstating as a project under serious consideration in 2014 was one of my proudest achievements. However, feasibility studies, complications, delays and several more meetings with the roads minister meant that it was not until November 2022 that the Secretary of State for Transport finally granted the Development Consent Order for the scheme (officially titled the A57 Link Road). We were optimistic that diggers in the ground would soon follow.

In actual fact, the Campaign to Protect Rural England then launch several legal challenges to proposed new roads, including the Mottram bypass. This week, the High Court rejected that action which attempted to block the bypass. Alongside Jon Pearce and the Longdendale councillors I welcomed this news, and urged the government to get on with it.

There remains one legal molehill still to resolve, because part of the CPRE’s case was “stayed”, awaiting a Court of Appeal decision relating to another proposed bypass in Boswell. I am informed that this should reach a conclusion in the New Year. After which, I sincerely hope there will be no more obstacles, and we can get on with shortening journey times, improving our area and reducing the prevalence of asthma etc in our villages.

I know that local people have been waiting decades and will believe it when they see it, but this really is yet another hurdle down towards spades in the ground. Let’s get this built and keep pushing for a longer-term solution for Hollingworth and Tintwistle. I will continue to keep Reporter readers informed.