THE weekend before Easter I was crossing the East Lancs Road at Haydock Island when I was nearly hit by one of a group of about five or six illegal off-road motorcycles travelling towards Manchester.


The bikes were all over the road, running red lights, pulling wheelies, and causing traffic to swerve. Despite having dashcam footage of the incident the police seemed uninterested.


Now I know the police are underfunded and overstretched, but, we are not talking about an individual tearing up a local park or a housing estate, we are talking about a growing mob, all wearing helmets incidentally, making a weekly ‘pilgrimage’ to somewhere, but where?


It took me about five minutes to locate this mecca for the riders, an off-road motorcycle facility in Astley.

Whilst I am well aware that Astley is under the jurisdiction of a different force, Greater Manchester Police, I feel it shouldn’t be too difficult to engage in a bit of cross border co-operation and get this stopped.


A few months ago I stopped to offer assistance to a distressed young lady on the road passing Sherdley Park.

She’d been driving toward the Bull and Dog roundabout when two illegal scramblers came flying into the road in front of her.


She’d swerved to avoid them and struck the kerb causing major, and expensive damage to two tyres on her car.

She’d phoned the police, but despite her obvious distress, nobody had attended. No doubt they’d have arrived en-masse if she’d have hit one of the bikes.


I’m not anti-bike, I’ve ridden both trail bikes and road bikes over the years.

Neither am I anti-police, however when an ever-growing group of bikers can ride illegally and seemingly with impunity along one of the biggest and busiest roads in our area, then something needs to be done.


Phil D, sthelensstar.co.uk