PLANS for a bypass in Westhoughton are expected to take another step forward next week.

In March a joint bid by Bolton and Wigan councils for £132m from the government’s Housing Infrastructure Forward Fund were given stage one approval. £38.1m is earmarked for the proposed bypass.

And on Monday Bolton Council’s strategic housing and planning chief Planning Cllr Martin Donaghy is due to authorise progressing the bid to stage two of the process, which is expected to be submitted in December.

This could involve the council spending some extra money, but this is not expected to be more than £50,000.

He is also expected to give council officers the green light to being preparing the business case for planning application for the bypass, in order to “provide certainty” for the bid.

The funding for the road is coming from a housing fund, as plans for hundreds of new homes in Westhoughton, at sites including Bowland’s Hey, Roscoe’s Farm and Lee Hall and the area already suffers from traffic congestion problems.

Cllr Donaghy said: "Clearly in Westhoughton at the moment we all know that the roads are choc-a-block so anything that relieves the traffic is a welcome initiative."

Cllr David Chadwick, Bolton Council’s highways boss said the need to address the issue was now even more pressing with the population of the area due to swell.

He said: “Clearly there is a lot of building activity going on near to Bolton on the Wigan boundary and there are a significant number of houses, so all that traffic will have to come on to roads up to Chequerbent Roundabout or on Newbrook Road to Junction 4 of the motorway.

“So we need to do something to alleviate the pressure on roads in Westhoughton because we have a problem where if we have a traffic accident, the whole place comes to a standstill – and traffic is increasing year-on-year.”

However, he said that there was no guarantee the joint bid would be successful at the second stage.

He said: “You are never quite sure if you are going to get it. I don’t want to appear negative, but it’s very much up in the air at the moment. It could happen, but it may not. That’s how the cookie crumbles.”

It is understood that Wigan Council is also working up proposals for new highways in its area, and an officer’s report to Cllr Donaghy says by working with the neighbouring authority at this stage would generate “efficiencies of scale”.

However, the report adds that the costs associated with the planning application are unknown and further work needs to take place to develop a business case for it.

The council would then hope to recover these costs through the Forward Fund, should its bid be successful, or through housing developer “section 106” contributions.

Local authorities are seeking confirmation that any money the spend on progressing their bids can be recovered, but this has not so far been guaranteed by the government.