John Pugh: “Rail links may never happen”

John Pugh is warning that despite all the recent talk about restoring the Burscough Curves, the odds are against it.

In a brutally frank short video he has outlined on social media the reason why restoring the Curves may end up in the too-hard-to-do category despite its benefits and despite its relatively modest cost.

He gives three major reasons:

1. There simply is not enough money around (£500m) to do all but a few Beeching restorations around the country and many competing priorities -including the massively expensive plan to restore rail links to Skelmersdale and provide a new station

2. Unlike other projects the Curves needs to have the support of a whole range of public bodies as the scheme effects Lancashire, Merseyside and Manchester

3. Cross-boundary projects are complex and are not necessarily backed with equal enthusiasm by all the Transport Authorities effected.

He describes any attempt to get all interested parties together as like’ knitting fog’.

“It’s very hard to get all the ducks lined up, “ he says . “And it will need a very strong signal from the government to bring things together. I am by nature an optimist but we all need to recognise that restoring the Curves will be a hard project to pull off. At the moment the government seem to think links to Skelmersdale are more important than links to Southport.”

Cllr. Pugh’s views can be found here.