ANYONE who lives on Bolton Road West, Bolton Street, Bolton Road or Stubbins Lane in Ramsbottom has, over the past few years, had a reduction in their standard of living because of the increasing volume of traffic.

Then there are the numerous times your wing mirrors get smashed, either by passing vehicles or by the moronic louts that Ramsbottom suffers from at weekends. Living on this road these days is no picnic.

However, why should we lose our pavements which, anyway, are not as wide as correspondent RM implies (Your Letters, Jan 28). It is bad enough now without this traffic getting even nearer to our homes. Perhaps RM would like to take our gardens too!

It does seem likely that RM lives on the Broadhey estate which, if this country were a true democracy, would not even exist.

One of the main objections to this development originally was the capacity of Bolton Road West. So how could the informed opinions of local people, a local council and a county council be totally ignored by one government department? There is, as RM states, a lot of heavy traffic using the road but vehicles from TNT, Cormar Carpets and Fort Sterling have as much right to be there as anyone. These businesses have been creating jobs in Ramsbottom for decades, long before Broadhey came about (and long may they continue to do so).

RM was right in stating that it will get worse. Simple mathematics demonstrate why.

In the last 20 years we have lost a lot of our industry and, while you cannot force businesses to locate to Ramsbottom, Bury MBC has clearly failed to attract any at all to replace the ones we have lost. The new Co-op store is the first business of any real size to come into the town and even that is on the site of three former mills. All this means is that most residents of Ramsbottom have to commute, and for this most people use a car.

Ramsbottom Secondary School used to have on average 350 pupils. It closed in 1979 and its replacement now has around 1,200 pupils. Ultimately, all these pupils will need to travel to work or to college.

We have had green fields built on; we have had factories razed to the ground and built on; we have had allotments built on; and now we have expensive, detached, perfectly good houses being knocked down to build even more houses. Enough is enough!

RESIDENT,

Bolton Road West,

Ramsbottom.

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