ONCE again the local populous is faced with yet another ill-thought out, temporary and expensive project conceived by a body of what appear to be retrogressive, short-sighted board members.

Their planned solution to relieve traffic congestion in the local area is to spend £20 million on a bus lane which will transport a million people a year from Leigh to... Ellenbrook! And then what?

We already have several buses whose function is to do just that. Admittedly they don't always appear on time, if at all. My son has to travel to Manchester every day (unfortunately he doesn't work in Ellenbrook, or these new proposals would have been just fine for him) and for the past three days the number 34 has failed to materialise at its allotted time, leaving him no choice but to take the number 26 and arrive late.

Why are they planning to send people to Ellenbrook? What possible reason could there be for sending a million people a year to exactly the same place that every commuter is leaving each morning? One cannot help imagining all these people disembarking in Ellenbrook and being stranded there because the buses they would have to catch to complete their journey, the same buses which are already going from Leigh to Manchester, haven't turned up.

Perhaps the planners haven't travelled in to Manchester from Leigh recently and don't realise that the congestion starts after Ellenbrook, further down the East Lancs Road.

So sending hundreds of travellers to Ellenbrook every day would be simply pointless and expensive. They would still have to catch the same bus that they would normally catch but from a point further down the route.

Get real, get modern, get European funding, invest for the future - where is the Metro-Link?

Yes, that profit making, safe, green, user friendly venture, already a success in Manchester between Bury and Altrincham, and now planned for Droylsden and Eccles.

Why isn't it planned to run from Piccadilly to the new Xanadu centre. How will all the tourists the new centre attracts start their trip back to the centre of Manchester? With a bus journey to Ellenbrook? (Can't resist another image here of Japanese tourists scurrying around Ellenbrook taking pictures of the Red Lion and the fire engine repair depot).

Why indeed isn't the Metro-Link already under construction across the Moss between Manchester and Liverpool? Anything else is just another fire-fighting, temporary measure.

The first railway line was laid between cities. Much of the original cuttings, clearings and tracks still exist and could be used as a blueprint for a futuristic travel service. Large car parks could be built on the Moss along the route for tomorrow's commuters to leave their vehicles and travel in comfort - to work - not to Ellenbrook.

When your children were growing up and they asked you for a bike you didn't say, "Well a bike's a bit dear, so here's a roller skate," did you?

Get the Metro-Link, join up the cities of the North West and dump this foolish scheme which cannot be considered sensible or serious.

Michael and Pauline Sykes

Lingards Lane

Astley

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