VISITORS to a multi-million pound country park could be greeted by a blot on the landscape!

Despite the £2.5 million transformation of the land at Outwood in Radcliffe from derelict colliery to green oasis, Bury Council has been powerless to do anything about the unsightly site of a former electricity sub-station.

"It's an eyesore," said Mrs Christine Fealey who lives on nearby Elm Avenue.

"The Outwood development is beautiful and an absolute credit, but this ruins it. The old sub-station site has broken fencing and wooden posts and, because it is next to the visitors' car park, it will be one of the first things they see. It looks awful."

She said other Outwood residents she had spoken to felt exactly the same.

"It's as if Norweb don't want to know. I have called them lots of times but all I get is an answering machine and no response." Bury Council, which also regards the sub-station site as a "fly in the ointment", has been equally unsuccessful in its attempts to resolve the situation.

Chief valuation officer Mr Mike Crook said: "We have been writing to Norweb for more than a year to try to discover if the site is surplus to their requirements. If that was the case we would buy it, landscape it, and incorporate it into the land we own.

"The problem is that Norweb have not given us any response and we are so fed-up with waiting we have carried on developing the land around the site."

The car park is bordered by Elm Avenue and Ringley Road and is next to the Outwood Colliery development. This is part of the ten-year Outwood Community Parkland Initiative which includes the restoration of the Victorian viaduct and a sculpture park.

The Bury Times took up the complaint with Norweb spokesman Mr Philip O'Brien this week.

He explained that it was standard procedure for queries such as the council's to be treated as a minor inquiry. Norweb was under the impression that the council wanted the land without paying for it, he said.

Mr O'Brien added: "We have employed a consultant architect to value the site. If it is deemed worthless then we would be minded to give it to Bury Council.

"However, if it does have a financial value, but the council does not wish to buy it, we would be happy to enter into an agreement whereby we give them the land in exchange for them giving us the freehold for an existing sub-station site within the borough."

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.