I WONDER what the people of Atherton, subjected to years of open-cast mining with little or no support or strong policing by Wigan MBC, feel about Cllr Strett's words of comfort and outrage.

Yes, I would agree with him the closure of the colliery was a result of Tory arrogance and half-baked economics but it does present a golden opportunity to provide something positive in the immediate future for everyone.

Bickershaw Colliery's 700 acres of dereliction and waste have plus points. A heavy duty railway linking directly in to the main West coast railway and a canal running through it that could be converted in to a first class marina.

A mile north across the scrubland and waste industrial land lies the old Wigan, Hindley Green, Tyldesley railway track bed, earmarked as a suburban connecting motorway, but which would alternatively be returned to its original purpose and linked to the main railway near Walkden. The colliery site is said to be heavily contaminated (but will not be designated greenbelt) and it will be partly used for residential purposes in addition to being a forest.

Less than a mile away a 70 acre real greenfield site (designated brownbelt?), next to extensive residential developments with no direct public transport connections (and certainly no chance of rail connections according to GMPTE or Wigan MBC) is earmarked for the biggest leisure complex for miles around with an expected 5,000 cars a day.

I am not anti-Xanadu but neither am I, or other people, prepared to suffer ill-thought out, badly-sited schemes pandering to rich vested interests.

Bickershaw Colliery is crying out for rapid restoration, will house a Xanadu twice the size planned at Pennington and stills allows for hundreds of acres of fields and forests. Best of all, its public transport opportunities are already there waiting.

So what are you waiting for Cllr Strett? You now have the opportunity so show the open-cast Tory scaremongering for what it is.

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.