A £400,000 repair project on a "precarious" retaining wall adjacent to an A-road in Diggle could start next month.

Oldham cabinet members have agreed to award the civil engineering contract for the works on Standedge Road to their preferred bidder.

Cabinet member for neighbourhood services, Cllr Arooj Shah told the meeting that the project involved the "procurement, tender, evaluation and acceptance" for the reconstruction scheme.

“The works include the demolition of an existing dilapidated masonry structure that supports the A670 Standedge Road in Diggle, and the reconstruction of this structural wall using a combination of ground stabilisation techniques, ground anchors, in-situ concrete and masonry cladding,” she said.

The exact bill for the works has not yet been confirmed, but the project will cost in excess of £400k.

A report by Steven Bird, senior engineer at highways and engineering at Unity Partnership, revealed that the wall has been an ongoing problem for the past four years.

It states that the existing masonry retaining wall and an adopted single track road leading to Acker Hall Farm partially collapsed in October 2014 as a result of "substandard construction materials, poor structural condition and unfavourable ground conditions".

Further inspections revealed that the retaining structures on either side of the collapse were also in poor condition and further structural failures were likely.

Although the road was unaffected, it was feared that any additional structural failures could damage the highway and underground services and could potentially close the road for a "considerable length of time".

Monitoring targets were placed around the road and regularly measured between 2014 and 2017.

During this time further ground movements were detected which "strongly suggested" that it was in danger of further collapse.

This led to a temporary access road to Acker Hall Farm being built in April 2016 but further movements under the wall continued.

It remains in a precarious condition and requires reconstruction in order to repair the existing damage and prevent additional future structural failures.

The money for the repairs will come from the transport capital programme. Work are expected to start on site in August and finished by December.