REGARDING article “180mph rail link praised” (Examiner October 2.)

One proposal for a Very High Speed Link from London and Heathrow to the North of England is for a line to serve the West Midlands going to Manchester, with a South to North cord to Liverpool and a West to East line from Liverpool to join the line to Manchester, and then on to Leeds and York. Another would run up the East Midlands to Leeds.

It is the dream of one group of people to create a ‘linear city’ along the M62 corridor, with a population equal to London and the South East.

A ‘city’ will not be created with the boundaries of a true city, but wouldn’t it be marvellous if the Northern part of the line was built first, at least from Liverpool to Leeds?

This would be of tremendous benefit to business people for whom the North of England as the place where they generate wealth and spend their money and who need to move around the north as easily and speedily as possible, as opposed to business people who want to get to London as quickly as possible to make and spend their money.

As part of this it would be possible to make a lot of door to door journeys along the M62 corridor by public transport as fast as by car.

A lot of cars would then be taken off the road. Another benefit of the line would be that passenger-train congestion would be eased on the existing rail connections, making it possible to develop an efficient rail-freight system.

Wagons would also then be removed, easing the heavy congestion on M62 a much greater benefit to people.

All in all, building the Northern section first would have a much greater benefit to Yorkshire, Greater Manchester and Merseyside, helping to weld their economies much more effectively together, than waiting for a line to gradually creep north.

There’s a strong possibility that this would only ever reach the West Midlands, and, at any rate, for people landing at Heathrow it will still be faster to fly to their final destination than travelling even by 180mph train.

A forlorn hope?

mr r hanson

Golcar

Questions along the Waterfront

PLANS for the Waterfront quarter development have received outline planning permission for scale, access and layout.

According to the report (Examiner, September 25), some councillors expressed concerns regarding the traffic impact of the development on the surrounding roads. Why then pass plans when the traffic problems have not been resolved?

In over three years how many meetings have taken place between the developers and Kirklees Highways with regards to the impact the traffic would have on the surrounding roads and with access to and leaving the Waterfront? Were any solutions put forward?

Did the Kirklees council scrutiny committee study the impact the Waterfront traffic would have on the surrounding roads including the ring road? What is the timescales from site clearance to total completion for the Waterfront and will it be completed in one go or in phases?

Two thousand new jobs will be created and yet the four office buildings have not yet been designed. How many businesses have shown an interest in moving to the Waterfront in the future? Is Kirklees council thinking of relocating to the Waterfront some of its various departments and small out of date satellite offices? Also raised in the report was the lack of car parking for the new college (ten spaces). With 2,500 staff how many car parking spaces would the new college require?

In close proximity to the Waterfront there is the Market Hall, Civic Centre, Springwood and bus station car parks. With regard to the public transport arrangements the Waterfront is not much further away from the bus station than the college on New North Road, the railway station slightly further. With numerous developments on or near the ring road in the planning stages is there a road strategy for the ring road and what strategy if any is planned for the forgotten A62 Manchester Road, a main arterial road in Huddersfield?

MG

Crosland Moor

An accident by design

WHAT numpty designed (or not) the new Sainsbury’s petrol station at Shore Head and its access and car park entrance layout? These are accidents waiting to happen.

The petrol station has less space in between the pumps and with three pumps to a row with no chance to exit will lead to more congestion than the old petrol filling station had.

There will be bumps with traffic having to cross each other when entering or leaving and queues onto the ring road at busy times.

The car park will lead to both arguments and accidents as the arrangement makes entering and leaving difficult in busy times.

Finally is a Saturday really a sensible day to open the new arrangements?

Brian Moore

Longwood

No plot price increases

THE Huddersfield Examiner, and in particular its editorial and business staff, who so championed the establishment of the Rose Hill Natural Burial Ground four years ago, will be pleased to bring to the attention of the citizens of Huddersfield, Kirklees, Calderdale, Sheffield etc that at a time of turmoil affecting every British citizen we will NOT be increasing burial or cremation plot prices before August 1, 2009.

Michael & Susan Brook

Directors, Rose Hill Natural Burial Ground

Cause for serious laughter

LAUGH of the week: Cherie Blair boasting that her husband Tony was a fantastic Prime Minister and that history will judge him very well. And she also thinks he will be up there with Churchill.

I want some of what she is on, then life may not look so bad.

R J Bray

Shelley

Well versed in geography

I WAS interested to read the old rhyme (“Villages in verse plea, Mailbag October 2)) – “High Burton, Low Burton, Burton below Barnsley,

“Huddersfield, Halifax, Holmfirth and Farnley,

Eastcliff and Westcliff, Cliffe and Cliffend...”

I don’t know where it comes from but it must go back over 150 years.

I first came across the verse, or something similar, in a biography published in America in 1902.

This tells the story of a Cumbrian man who moved to Kirkburton around 1840 and in 1851 married a local girl before moving to America and settling in Iowa.

He became a noted orator and member of the State Legislature. ŠShortly before he died a friend wrote the book “to cheer the heart and drive away the clouds from the chamber of a sick man”.

In recounting his early life,Š the author says how his friend had left Kendal “intending to go to Burton in Yorkshire” which is “is a great manufacturing district”.

Part of Burton is situated on a hill and another part in the valley beneath, and there is another village of the name, some five miles away.Š The quaint old couplet ran:

“High Burton,Š Low Burton, and Burton by Bearnsley,

Huddlesfield, Halifax, Halford and Fearnsley.”

I assume Low Burton is an allusion to Kirkburton, but there is no logical explanation as to why the places in the rhyme have been grouped together in this way. ŠThere is no common bond.

Robert A Carter

Kirkburton

Calming those with disabilities

I ENDORSE the comments made by David Jagger (“Added danger on the hill,” Mailbag October 3) and advise that I contacted a councillor some time ago as to whether or not those in wheelchairs had ever been consulted with regard to the effects of the implementation of so-called traffic calming measures whilst being transported in adapted vehicles. So far without response!

I know from experience that wheelchair users find our abysmal roads uncomfortable enough, without further impediments, which are constructed as a means of reacting to the symptoms of bad driving without consideration of the root cause.

Phil Hellawell

Huddersfield

Rewards for the law-breakers

I WONDER if any of your readers are able to enlighten me as to how to get one of those permits to drive straight though town using Kirkgate.

The signage states quite clearly that only buses and bicycles (not even taxis!) have through access yet a high volume of other traffic – especially taxis – cuts straight through the town centre with total impunity.

So, there must be a plethora of permits floating around. The powers that be never stop such vehicles and yet I can never see any permit displayed.

If there is a traffic restriction then it ought to apply to all and should be enforced. Or are those of us who follow the rules just plain simpletons?

Yet another case of the law-abiding conforming while the miscreants get away scot free.

Now where do I apply? There seems to be so many that they must be free!

GB

Shepley

The accountability of the police

THE last few days has brought a flurry of insults and barbed comments to Boris Johnson about the dislodging of Sir Ian Blair.

The latest from West Yorkshire Chief Constable Sir Norman Bettison who said the “dislodging” of Sir Ian Blair was “a demonstration of political will”.

Now correct me if I am wrong but I was under the impression that this country was run via a political system in which the government (irrespective of political allegiance) were elected by the people to run their affairs, with general elections to throw them out if they were not doing the people’s combined will.

Surely the comment made by Sir Norman Bettison infers that he thinks a police state where the police should be allowed to do what they wanted without being accountable is his preferred position.

With all its faults I prefer our lopsided political system to that of an uncontrolled Police State.

Christopher Woolnough

Linthwaite