Mark Logan, Conservative MP for Bolton North East, has reignited plans for extending the Manchester Metrolink network to Bolton by submitting proposals to the Department for Transport as part of the £500m Restoring Your Railways fund. The line would link Bolton with Bury and Radcliffe and would mainly run on a disused railway track bed.
Mark Logan explains more on the plans: “I’m really pleased we’re in the running for this investment project, investing in transport links is key to levelling up opportunities, bringing our communities closer together, and allowing Bolton’s local economy to flourish.”
Mr Logan has been working closely alongside Cllr Stuart Haslam (Bolton Council Executive Cabinet Member for Transport) to work on the proposals which would see the reinstatement of the Bolton to Radcliffe and Bolton to Bury lines.
Cllr David Greenhalgh, Leader of Bolton Council, said to the Manchester Evening News: “These are the first exciting steps to attempt to bring Metrolink to Bolton, an aspiration we had as the new administration, and we will continue to work with our partners in Transport for Greater Manchester and Mark Logan MP, to hopefully get to the next stage of the process and put a bid together that will truly benefit Bolton.”
These proposals are at a very early stage and the £500 million Restoring Your Railways fund will be unable to support all those being developed currently but it’s a start to bringing Bolton onto the Metrolink map.
Although the ‘gap’ between the 2 isnt too far, it immediately shows 2 things…..
1) The shortsightedness of planners and councils to allow the trackbed to be built on by developers (housing estate, trading estate etc) and
2) £500 million might not cut it, as at least 1, and possibly 3 new bridges will need building, the trackbed is severed by a school and will need diverting, roads closed permanently as they arent wide enough for tram and traffic and houses are in the way of widening.
At £30m a tram for instance wont allow for many in that budget to allow a good frequency of traffic. (maybe dedicated Parry People Movers, or how about older trams being withdrawn from use to keep the budget down) PPM will have the advantage of not requiring the expense of wires being put up but wont integrate the scheme fully.
I’d personally love to see it, but £500m looks unrealistic.
Which older Trams? Any old Trams are end of life anyway, why do you think the T68s went?
The £500m isn’t for taking the proposed project forward. It is a national fund to be allocated across several projects around the country. The purpose of the individual awards is to allow the winning projects to be developed to a stage where their viability can be more accurately assessed. I suspect that no individual project will be awarded more than a few tens of millions.