THE ROW that has broken out over the traffic chaos at the eastern end of the M65 - with Pendle Council being blamed for not backing the motorway's extension into Yorkshire - ought to put the focus not on who or what is responsible for the problem, but on what is to be done about it.

For the traffic misery in Colne is real and the need for improvement is urgent.

There was always a bottleneck in the vicinity and heavy pressure on the towns and villages on the A56 carrying through-traffic to and from the trans-Pennine A59 route.

But the completion of the M65's westward extension to the M6 and M61 has inevitably increased traffic flows through Colne.

Yet whether or not this puts up a renewed case for extending the M65 eastwards to make it a second trans-Pennine motorway, taking the strain off the heavily-burdened M62 what is plain is that Colne and the communities on the A56 are under too much strain.

It may be that the Foulridge-Earby by-pass scheme promises some eventual local relief, but a strategic and economic examination of the whole trans-Pennine traffic situation is also required.

New roads are, of course, now being frowned on by the government in line with its "green" commitment to reducing traffic rather than encouraging it.

Even so, where there is a strategic case for building new roads - and it has long been argued that there is one for improved trans-Pennine communications north of the M62 - the government has a duty to investigate, if only so that the kind of problems that Colne is experiencing do not continue or end up being shoved further along the map.

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