3 days Ago
"Rural villages in Cheshire have better train services than Farnworth and it's wrong", a councillor has said. The council unveiled its transport strategy on Monday, November 11 with councillors urging for improved rail links to and from Bolton town centre. It comes after Bolton was notably absent from Greater Manchester Combined Authority plans to extend the Metrolink system earlier this year despite announcing proposals for new routes to Middleton, Heywood and eventually Stockport.
The cancellation of the Restoring Your Railway fund in July further halted tram and railway projects in the borough, specifically business cases for a tram from Radcliffe to Bolton and a train to Rawtenstall from Bury. Addressing the council, Cllr Sue Haworth, who represents Harper Green ward, expressed the town’s pressing need for increased transportation funding. She said: “Nobody can underestimate how much of a bedfellow transport is for the economy.
“If you want economic growth, you’ve got to get your transport right. The mayor of Greater Manchester (Andy Burnham) has made public statements that they’re attending to the freight and reduce the freight dependency on the rail. "For us, it’ll be making sure that we get some of that dividend.
“I’ll confess, I just worry that there will be other people trying to get a dividend on that, in East Manchester they have stations they want to be served better. “But I’ve said it myself, there are Cheshire villages with better train services than Farnworth and Moses Gate and it’s wrong. That’s why there’s a fight in me to get this dividend.
“We are going to be up against the other nine (Greater Manchester boroughs), who will want to try to get the dividend for themselves- no, we want this dividend here. “We don’t have Metrolink, we should be first in the queue.” READ MORE > Bolton police as Operation Sceptre launched to fight knife crime READ MORE > Road above Winter Hill shut for works on TV mast READ MORE > Bolton Council details its anti-poverty strategy after shock number The idea of bringing trams to Bolton has been a long-debated topic.
Last May, plans for two new platforms at Manchester Piccadilly were dropped in favour of a £72m investment in regional rail upgrades. Cllr Sean Fielding, who represents Breightmet, said: “One of the solutions to rail connections that we experience in and around Manchester city centre that also impacts Bolton would be the delivery of platforms 15 and 16 at Piccadilly Station. “This has long been an aspiration of Greater Manchester and was sadly pulled back in 2023.
“That’s something we should be lobbying for. Even though it is a piece of infrastructure in central Manchester, it would greatly benefit us in Bolton to have more trains and the stopping services referred to by Cllr Haworth.”.
