Let’s use the track before it is built over

REGARDING Nigel Mutimer’s letter (“Why trams would have the edge over rail line”, Mailbox, December 14), I’d like to ask him why he’s muddying the waters by lumping in Bardon Hill Quarry with Bardon Industrial Area located on the opposite side of the A511?

We know that apart from the railway being one of their big customers, there’s usually no doubt that the quarry’s extraction licence depends somewhat on the percentage of mineral extracted being in an acceptable ratio of rail to lorry journeys.

As to Nigel’s declaration that there is no road congestion on the A511 in that area, let me share this.

Having worked as a contractor in both the quarry and the sidings, when leaving the quarry site just before 5pm, I’ve joined the queue of lorries, vans and cars waiting to negotiate both the Flying Horse and the M1 Junction 22 roundabouts.

I would add that I never saw a mineral lorry at that time of the afternoon. The continued expansion of the Bardon Industrial area can only exacerbate these traffic problems.

As to the residents of Ratby and Groby having access, the purchase of the old railway site (sometimes a caravan park) just inside the lane to Ratby could be advantageous, along with some adjoining land for a car park and a link made to the Ivanhoe line between Newtown Unthank and Kirby Muxloe rather than, as it did, run through to Leicester as the old Leicester-Swannington line.

I urge Nigel to expand his thinking on using the railway infrastructure whilst it still exists. Trams could start from the edge of the city, using the roads as they used to.

If we utilise existing or reinstated trackbed, let’s do it before speculative building of houses and warehousing deny us the opportunity!

Incidentally, I’d like to commend the lads at Bardon for their enthusiasm in loading and making-up trains for the dispatch of stone. Long may it continue.

Kev Taylor, Croft