After builders cleaning in Rochdale

Places for Everyone, in force since 21 March 2024, aims for around 10,500 new homes in the borough. Its larger allocations include about 1,680 homes at Stakehill, 550 at Trows Farm in Castleton, 450 at Bamford and Norden and 300 north of Smithy Bridge, on the Littleborough side. The Northern Gateway, shared with Bury, adds up to 1,550 homes between Simister and Bowlee next to an industrial estate planned between junctions 18 and 19 of the M62. In the town centre the council leader has linked £20 million of Community Regeneration Partnership funding to the planned Station Gardens homes at Drake Street and Oldham Road and the Corner Plot scheme beside the station.

Each of those ends in handover cleans: fine dust inside new kitchen units, stickers on every pane and paint spots on floors; cleaning a new kitchen or bathroom covers the wet rooms.

The skip supplier gets the council licence for a skip on a Rochdale road, never the householder. A licence lasts from 1 to 28 days and covers one skip per site, which should stand on the carriageway where possible with at least four cones and lamps at night; a deposit may be asked for a skip on a footway or verge. Scaffolding or a hoarding on the highway needs a licence from the Highways and Engineering Service, applied for with a form and a sketch, and hoardings must be at least 2.5 metres high. Town centre scaffolds may be erected or struck only in the evening after 6pm, early before 8am or on a Sunday. Closing a road or suspending a parking restriction takes a temporary traffic regulation order, which costs £1,130 plus the signs.

Each household in a resident parking scheme can have one resident permit and one visitor permit and the schemes are enforced around the clock; the council also lets a tradesperson or contractor working at the home borrow the household's permit. Leave the visitor permit out for the van.

The council lists 30 conservation areas, among them Rochdale Town Centre, Middleton Town Centre, Littleborough Town Centre and Toad Lane, with Syke added in 2026. Five lie within 800 m of the middle of Central Rochdale ward, Toad Lane, Town Head and Maclure Road among them, along with 51 listed buildings, four of them Grade I, including the Town Hall and the Church of St Mary in the Baum. The council says it will rarely make new Article 4 directions. Where one applies, even new doors, windows or gutters need planning permission, and planning data records six in the borough, one from 1989 covering Prickshaw, Croft Head and Broadley Fold. In an old building the crew treats original glass, tiles and joinery gently and says on the day what will not come off.

Rochdale has no selective licensing, so outside HMO licensing a privately rented home needs no council licence. A five-year HMO licence costs £1,011 plus a £53 inspection fee for each habitable room, so an HMO with ten habitable rooms pays £1,541.