Westhoughton - Transport

Transport

The M61 motorway passes through the north of the town which is served by junctions 5 and 6. The A58 (Park Road/Cricketers Way/Wigan Road), and the A6 (Manchester Road/Chorley Road) cross the town as do the B5236 (Church Street), the B5235 (Bolton Road/Mill Street/Leigh Road), and the B5239 (Dicconson Lane).

Westhoughton railway station on Church Street, and Daisy Hill railway station on Leigh Road are served by Northern Rail trains between Southport and Manchester via Wigan Wallgate. Trains from Westhoughton to Manchester Piccadilly run via Bolton; trains from Daisy Hill to Manchester Victoria run via Atherton. Formerly there were stations at Chequerbent (closed 1952) Dicconson Lane and Hilton House (the last two, closed in 1956). Electric trams to Bolton served Westhoughton until 1947. The closure occurred after just 23 years of service (on 19 December 1924, the Bolton to Deane service had been extended to Westhoughton).

In the late 1980s a station was planned at Dobb Brow but was not built. Lostock and Horwich Parkway stations, to the north, also serve the town. The annual usage of the town's two stations (Daisy Hill and Westhoughton), at almost 400,000 passengers in 2009/10 (439,130 in 2010/11), is greater than that of many major UK towns and is regarded as impressive for a town with a population of just 23,000 (19 journeys per head of population).

Westhoughton is served by several bus services, linking it with Bolton, Wigan and Leigh. The most frequent service is the 540 between Bolton and Wigan run by First Greater Manchester and operates every 15 minutes during the day, Monday to Saturday and every 30 minutes in the evenings and on Sundays. Additional weekday journeys run between Bolton and Daisy Hill. Other bus services are the 516 and 517 Leigh – Horwich (South Lancs Travel plus First/Maytree Travel on 516); 521 Blackrod – Little Lever (SLT); 559 Bolton – Hindley (Maytree) and 715 Bolton – Wigan (Arriva North West/Maytree).