Information supplied by Oldham Council in response to the questions local councillors and the public have asked.

The building is owned by the Methodist Church, who are responsible for the work and have taken the lead in repairing / making the building safe.

Officers from Building Control and Planning met with the Church and their Conservation Officer this morning (25^th Feb 2019), and agreed in broad terms the extent of the emergency works.  This is currently being finalised by the engineers and architects.  Emergency works would be completed within two weeks.

The full programme of work is likely to require positive dismantling (“brick by brick”) of the front elevation in order to protect the heritage of the building and enable repairs.  The works will require an engineered scaffolding design to ensure health and safety on site, and are likely to involve use of a cherry picker and high reach appliance/crane.  Closure will need to be maintained for this work to take place.  It is likely that the left hand pavement on Chapel Street, will need to remain closed to allow the structural scaffold to be maintained.

The total duration of the works, and the period for which road closure will need to be in place are dependent on the detailed engineering decisions.  We will provide a further update on this once the plan is clarified.

Rochdale Road hasn’t been opened up on the south side for vehicles exiting Rochdale Road via, Crompton Way due to complexities in how the traffic light system operates.

In terms of the market there seems to be no traffic reason why Shaw market on Thursdays should not proceed as planned.

Any questions or issues can be directed through the District Team, who will co-ordinate the responses from different services (e-mail: RSCDistrictTeam@oldham.gov.uk).

THIS IS THE INFORMATION I HAVE BEEN SENT BY OLDHAM COUNCIL FROM A FEW SOURCES AND HAVE NOW PIECED IT TOGETHER

At approx. 12.10 am on Thursday 21^st February 2019, Building Control were notified by First Response of a partial collapse of the roof at Saint Paul’s Methodist Church on Rochdale Road Shaw. The building was formally the home of two nursery school but is currently unoccupied.

Initial response was from the local Fire Authority with Building Control attendance at site at 12.30am. Following a preliminary assessment of the building. Building Control made the immediate area safe. This required a road closure on the Chapel Street elevation and isolation with barriers, with information fed back thorough first response.

The during the early part of Thursday morning the Church was notified of the incident with Building Control requesting the attendance of their appointed Structural Engineers.

Following a more detailed inspection of the building by Building Control, and the Churches appointed Structural Engineers. The Council’s highways department were contacted to introduce local traffic management plan to allow a programme of work to be instigated to ensure the buildings safety. The current protection measures are those considered necessary by the Churches Structural Engineer to ensure public safety.

The traffic management plan is likely to be in place for the next few weeks while the works are underway. Whilst there is a restriction on local traffic in the area we are hopeful that day to day impact on local businesses and residents will be kept to a minimum.

Rochdale Road, Shaw has been closed between Crompton Way and St Mary’s Gate due to the collapse at St Paul’s Church; the closure is required for a two week period to allow the building to made safe but every effort will be made to re-open the road at the earliest opportunity.

General traffic will be diverted along Eastway, High Street and Crompton Way but the distribution centre traffic is being diverted along Beal Lane, Grains Road, Hillside Avenue and Buckstones Road; we have used this route previously when Beal Lane has been closed at the level crossing.  To ensure this route is available for use we are making arrangements for ‘no parking’ cones to be introduced along the diversion route together with temporary lights at the junction of Buckstones Road and Milnrow Road to enable the HGV’s to make the required turning manoeuvres.

I have attached a sketch of the proposed diversion routes.

See link: Rochdale Rd Closure Shaw

The blue route is for general traffic and the yellow one is the route that we have instructed the Distribution Centres HGV’s to take.

Me and my councillor colleagues Chris Gloster and Hazel Gloster have already asked the following questions:

1. What is plan to make safe?
2. Does this involve demolishing all or part of building?
3. Who’s taking responsibility for the work.
4. When is it likely to start?
5. When is it likely to finish?
6. Who is single point of contact to address issues/complaints to/from Councillors and public(building)?
7. Who is single point of contact to address issues/complaints to/from Councillors and public (roads and diversions)?

As we get more information we will share with residents and businesses.  We all need to be thankful nobody was hurt in this collapse.