GIVE and Take has been given a whole new meaning in Greater Manchester since the Government confiscated the £37 million rail cash it owes to local tax payers The cash represents previous investment in the local rail network which was funded by Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Authority which gets its capital from Council Tax payers.

Railtrack and British Rail should be paying this money back, but a Government cash-juggling exercise ensures we get nothing.

Currently an all-party delegation of local transport chiefs and Greater Manchester MPs is demanding an explanation from the Secretary of State for transport.

What has happened is that the Department of Transport has decided to reduce its existing grant to Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Authority, for the additional costs of rail privatisation, by the amount to be repaid.

Councillor Joe Clarke, chairman of the Authority, has described the move as "an act of the utmost cynicism."

He commented: "Rail privatisation has already cost the public purse a fortune and, in their haste to sell off what remains of our railway, assets paid for by local people will pass to private sector hands for a pittance.

"We were promised by the Government that our investment would be repaid to us so that we could use the money for desperately needed improvements elsewhere.

"Instead it has been taken back to reduce the mammoth bill run up by the Government."

Chairman of the all party meeting on MPs, Alf Morris (Wythenshawe), said:: "I have already put the Secretary of State on notice that MPs in Greater Manchester, along with local councillors, will want to meet him to remedy this bizarre situation."

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