From the Reporter files - Thursday 7th August 2025

‘Weeding and writing’ were on the school curriculum for Hurst Methodist Junior pupils in 1991.

The green-fingered youngsters spruced up the entrance to the school on Lees Road, Ashton by pulling up weeds and planting shrubs and bulbs for the season ahead. 

Keen to make a difference, the pupils had spent every available minute they had hard at work, even during their break-time.

One of Ashton’s most popular town centre pubs was saved from the threat of demolition.

The Beau Geste on Katherine Street was due to be knocked down as part of the multi-million pound Arcades shopping development. Revised plans approved by the council in 1991 would see the new centre scaled back to two thirds of the original proposed size. Beau Geste landlady Brenda Dance was delighted the pub had been spared.

“We didn’t know if we were staying or going,” she told our reporter.  After many months of uncertainty, she could now focus on “getting something done about the decor.”

Passengers were faced with a long wait for the next train from Godley East - six days, 23 hours and 59 minutes.

British Rail’s latest timetable changes meant there would be no more regular daily stops at the halt, just 500 yards from the recently built Godley Station. From now on, there would be only one train a week calling at the eastern outpost.

Godley East - where servicemen waved goodbye to their loved ones in two World Wars - was once a busy junction with freight sidings receiving and despatching goods worldwide. Passenger numbers had plummeted since the new station opened. By 1991 it stood unmanned and neglected with weeds growing through cracks in the platforms.

Targeted by vandals, the abandoned station buildings had become an eyesore. 

Ten years after the Chemstar disaster, work was due to start on reclaiming the site by the end of 1991.

Residents were assured that great care would be taken to remove all traces of the contaminated soil left behind following the devastating explosion in Carrbrook.

Experts were confident the restored land would be suitable for recreational use.

Denton’s former Alpha playing fields next to the M66-M67 roundabout had attracted plenty of interest from potential developers - but they were likely to have a long wait.

The land had previously been a household tip and ‘substantial amounts’ of gas had been discovered. A full assessment would take up to nine months to complete.

Campaigners fighting a controversial offices, housing and hotel development at Kingswater Park, next to Audenshaw Reservoirs warned that the battle was far from over, after North West Water suddenly decided to withdraw the latest plans, three weeks before a public inquiry was due to take place.

A revised application for the 250-acre site was expected within months.

Leisure services staff were baffled as to how thieves had managed to steal ‘Samson’ - a 10ft statue on top of the fountain in Dukinfield Park.

The culprits would have first had to unscrew the figure and then lower it from its pedestal. Twelve months earlier when the statue was given a facelift, it had taken at least two staff to shift it. 

Mossley Market’s sparkling clean, well maintained public toilets were nominated for the 1991 Loo of the Year awards.

The toilets had been praised for their disabled access, baby changing facilities and the high standard of cleanliness insisted on by regular attendants Margaret Saxon and Patrick Farrell.

Droylsden’s Garden Avenue day nursery was earmarked to close as part of a borough-wide review of pre-school education.

Council officials argued resources should be re-allocated to provide a new nursery in Stalybridge for Droylsden had two nurseries, and Stalybridge had none.

Angry traders in Stalybridge accused Tameside Council of dragging their feet over the reopening of Victoria Bridge.

Since January the town had been sliced in half while the bridge was rebuilt. The return to normal traffic flow been put back from August to September.