Police have closed Green Lane/Canal Bank between Patricroft and Monton for the second time in a week after building site workers unearthed eight suspected mortar shells at a former munitions factory.
Officers were called to the former Patricroft Royal Ordnance Factory (ROF) at 11.30am this morning, Tuesday 10 November.
Army Explosive Ordnance Device bomb disposal teams are on their way to the site from Chester as a precaution.
The B5231 Green Lane/Canal Bank is closed between Patricroft railway bridge and Monton roundabout, in a direct repeat of a bomb alert on Friday last week.
Read: Bomb alert on Green Lane Eccles: Former Patricroft ROF site evacuated after unexploded mortar found
As of 12.30pm the road closure is still in place, albeit with fewer police vehicles than last week.
Traffic heading towards Monton is being diverted down Cromwell Road, while drivers heading from Monton are being told to go via Canal Bank.
Unlike the previous alert, traffic is being allowed to pass in and out of the nearby James Nasmyth Industrial Estate, opposite the ROF site.
A lone officer, Eccles PCSO Khalid Raza, is standing guard outside the now-demolished factory walls on Green Lane.
A satellite map of the ROF site, north of Patricroft station and west of Green Lane/Canal Bank
The building site has also been evacuated, despite last week’s false alarm.
It emerged after last week’s road closure and bomb alert that the mortar shell found was empty and was a ‘non-explosive device’.
Road closure on Friday 6 November after unexploded mortar shell found on Green Lane in Eccles
Trains are being allowed to pass through Patricroft station.
The site is being cleared by Countryside Properties to build 142 homes.
Patricroft ROF, which employed 3,000 people at the height of its powers, made mortar casings but these were normally shipped off elsewhere to be filled with explosive material.
A spokesperson for Greater Manchester Police said: “We are treating this just as seriously as Friday’s incident, with road closures in place.”
1.30pm Update: Investigation work continues at the former ROF site but Green Lane/Canal Bank has been re-opened to traffic.
