I READ Cllr Strett's "Breath of fresh air" response to my letter of February 25 and naively thought at last, meaningful dialogue can now begin on repairing the ravages coal mining has brought on large areas of our borough. At the same time accommodating Xanadu on the site could bring long awaited rail links, employment, leisure facilities, new green fields and forests.

On receiving a personal reply from the Borough Planning Officer, I can only describe its contents as depressing, with no vision for potential or the least thought for the well being of the community.

In essence the reply was:

1. Railway - "sold off to private interests...not currently available."

2. Bickershaw site - "only accessed by a very poor road network."

3. Developer and 72 acre Pennington site - "does not wish to locate it at Bickershaw."

Has the railway been sold off for the purposes that started this correspondence ie. open cast?

If not, all railways are privatised now Mr Sloane, so what's the problem?

The idea of access is by public transport only! If all these thousands of skiers are not going to put their equipment on trains at Manchester/Liverpool, they are certainly not going to put them on a bus at Kenyon Junction Station, to take them off again at Xanadu, a mile up the road.

So after weighing up the vast potential profits for a greedy developer against the terrible price the people of Leigh will pay in traffic chaos, pollution, loss of sports fields/habitat/wild life and overwhelming opposition to our newly re-vitalised town centre, it appears Wigan MBC is going to support the developer.

To rub salt in to the wound we will still have 700 acres of derelict colliery land and the constant threat of open cast mining. What a bequest to the next generation.

May I finish by saying that on such important issues as this, impacting across all the community, Cllr Strett should at least have the courtesy to reply via The Journal to allow the people of Leigh the opportunity to judge for themselves the merit of the case.

Mr G. Blackburn

Hayman Avenue,

Leigh

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.