A GOVERNMENT minister has said that he is “positive” about the plan to restore passenger trains direct from Burnley to Manchester.

Transport minister Chris Mole made the comments after Burnley MP Kitty Ussher secured a half-hour adjournment debate on the need to restore the section of track known as the Todmorden Curve.

If given the go-ahead, it would allow journeys from Burnley to Manchester in just 35 minutes.

At the debate, which was called at the end of the Parliamentary day at Westminster, the MP challenged the rail minister to declare his support for the work, lobby Network Rail, and visit the area.

She said the work was “of critical importance” to the town’s future.

Mrs Ussher said: “Although we are less than thirty miles north of the booming and fashionable metropolis of Manchester, there’s no fast train link and so it’s nigh impossible to commute there during rush hour.

“The buses, although good, take an hour and a half each way at peak times, as demonstrated by their own published timetable, and it can be even slower by car.

"This is simply a nonsense. Where else in the country is there a town of 90,000 people, 30 miles from an urban centre of two and a half million people, with no fast train between the two?”

She said the work, which would allow a “turnback” facility to be created, already had the support of council and regional government bosses.

The Burnley MP asked Mr Mole to declare his support for the scheme, agree that the Department for Transport would help with the funding, and put pressure on Network Rail to act faster.

It would, she said, be “theoretically possible” for work to begin as soon as 2011.

Mr Mole promised he would keep a “working brief” on the scheme which he was “positive” about.

He said he would consult his diary on a date to visit Burnley.