Families are celebrating after a footpath near a farm shop in Sandbach is open for business in time for the summer.

The footpath on Crewe Road near Wheelock Hall Farm shop was overgrown with grass and difficult for pedestrians to use.

Parents with pushchairs and school children walking to school have found it near impossible to negotiate the footpath along the busy road.

But now the local Cheshire East ward councillor, Cllr Laura Crane, has won an on-going campaign to get nearly a foot of the overgrown path reclaimed.

And she is now fighting to get the path resurfaced and easier for pedestrians to negotiate.

Cllr Crane, Vice Chair of Cheshire East Council's Highways and Transport Committee, said: "After raising this issue regularly since 2019, work was carried out this week on the stretch of pavement near to Wheelock Hall Farm.

"The work has been paid for from my ward budget and I've asked for the whole path to be assessed for resurfacing.

"For too long, parents have struggled to walk their children along this stretch and wheelchairs have found it difficult, if not near impossible, to get along the narrow slither of pavement that hadn't been eaten up by the growth of grass.

"Now that should be much easier. At least a foot of pavement width has been recovered so far.

"The next job is to get it and other pavements brought back up to the standard we should expect. We cannot ask people to walk more if the pavements aren't good enough for them to walk on.

Avid walker, Terry Hughes, a member of Sandbach Footpaths Group, has previously avoided the path but says he will now be using it.

"I didn't feel comfortable using it because it was so overgrown and you had to walk to close to the road and on-coming traffic," said Terry.

"This is marvellous news. I will certainly be using it a lot more now. There's a nice walk to Winterley Pool.

"It's also nice to walk to the farm shop from my home. This is such a wonderful piece of work for local residents."

Local resident, Kate Southwell said: "This issue was raised in 2016, it was in a real state then. Great to see it finally being fixed as it's a well- used path."