Horwich Works: The bulldozers have moved in
HORWICH Works, the engineering headquarters of the Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway, will soon be no more.
The towering and distinctive red brick buildings that were once occupied by a workforce of 10,000 are being toppled to build one of the North West’s largest new housing estates.
After five years of to-and-fro debate, it has also just been confirmed the cavernous erecting shop, where more than 2,000 locomotives were assembled, is also to be flattened to make for a link road.
Its history – it was where great designers such as Sir Nigel Gresley, Sir Henry Fowler and Richard Maunsell learned their trade – counts for nothing following the discovery of significant quantities of deadly asbestos around the site.
Horwich is going the same way as many other classic works, notably Swindon and Derby, and large portions of Doncaster and Crewe. The demand for housing is so great that the opportunity to build 1,700 homes in a mid-Lancashire town well served by both the railway and the M61 motorway has proved irresistible.
It had always been hoped the erecting shop might be reprieved to become a centrepiece for the £200million scheme. Despite its size, it would have been ideal for conversion into flats, and school... a leisure centre, perhaps.
Asbestos dumped
However, a wide new road with cycleways and footpaths needs plenty of space, and Bolton Council has warned that has to be carefully aligned to avoid disturbing areas where it is known asbestos was dumped. The only route it can take is through the erecting shop site.
Steady progress meanwhile is being made to clear the
