THE current debate on whether or not to build a train station for Leigh at Kenyon seems to ignore two vital points.

1 There is already a station in the area that could serve the needs of the Leigh community and the desired Park and Ride for Xanadu.

2 Without massive investment in a link road from the A580 to the proposed Kenyon station, the site is not easily accessible either to cars or buses. Kenyon Lane is a narrow village lane not easily widened.

We have at present, only a couple of miles away in Newton le Willows, a station on the Kenyon line that is underused and underdeveloped. With a small amount of co-operation between Wigan and St Helens Councils, the GMPTE and Merseytravel there is an opportunity to provide Leigh with top class rail links to Manchester and Liverpool.

If proper facilities such as those being suggested for Kenyon were provided at this site, for example proper car parking and a regular bus service, then Newton could provide the station that Leigh needs. There would be no need to develop greenfield sites, no need to build brand new roads, and maybe even a reduction in the congestion on the local roads as people will be able to travel by bus to the station at all times of the day rather than having to rely on the car.

Today the car park can take only a handful of cars and new parking restrictions on the adjacent road reduce this further, also there are only two buses an hour from Leigh to the station, which on the return journey run within 5 minutes of each other, which do not coincide with the times of the trains and they stop at 6.30pm.

With a bit of thought and no small amount of co-operation between councils, this is an opportunity that the people of Leigh should not be missing out on. Why spend millions on building a new station when that money could be used to our benefit in other ways if we only looked on our doorstep.

One wonders why this solution hasn't been considered by the Metro planners and the developers? Could it be that Newton is outside the borough and Wigan can not come up with any reasons that will persuade anyone other that Wigan councillors?

Warrington Council may have already proved this with its refusal over the Kenyon proposal.

Andrew Hields,

Lowton.

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