Oldham's Wood - the new name for Swallow's Wood?

If you've been paying a certain amount of attention to the local press in recent weeks, you may have noticed that there have been tentative ideas mooted about naming a Tameside Nature Reserve after the late Council Leader, Roy Oldham.

A local person, Margaret Smethurst, proposed that Haughton Dale Nature Reserve, near Denton, should be renamed the Roy Oldham Haughton Dale Local Nature Reserve at a recent District Assembly Meeting. The idea seems to be receiving serious consideration, in that the local rags are talking about it. Now whilst our friend John Hall may have something to say about the contradictions of the man most responsible for environmental pollution and the destruction of Green space in Denton being memorialised in the name of the local Nature Reserve, we feel we have a compromise solution that will keep everyone happy.

How about Roy Oldham's name being attached to the Nature Reserve at Swallow's Wood? We are serious! He never got to see his bypass built, but let's remember - this is a man that supposedly was 'aware of the beautiful countryside on his doorstep' - so what better tribute to his ultimate success in keeping Swallows Wood and the surrounding countryside preserved for the future (through his failure to erect a bypass)? Who knows, in decades to come, Roy Oldham may even secure his place in future 'Legends of Longdendale' as the man who saved the wood from the clutches of the evil road-men. After all, if the wood was to bear his name, what Tameside politician would ever dare to support a plan to put a road through it!

Sod Denton - let's have Roy Oldham's Wood here in Longdendale!