CLOSURE IS PERMANENT

FOLLOWING your article of November 10 on possible delays to the bus station due to road closure notices, and responses on November 17, please can the facts be made clear?

The stopping up notices for parts of North Street and Lord Street are for permanent closure, not just for the construction period.

I and others have written to the Free Press over a period of at least a couple of years expressing concern that no traffic scheme has come forward as to how vehicles in Kay Street, beyond the proposed two way system at the car park end, will be able to get back onto Bacup Road without going via Bank Street and St Mary’s Way. Even before these proposals were made, the restriction of the lower part of Lord Street to ‘buses only’ would have had the same effect.

Royal Mail were aware from an early stage in the proceedings as to how their vehicle movements would be affected, and they, along with other parties and individuals certainly did put in objections at the time.

The problem is that to date there are still no proposals as to how the routine traffic flow, let alone Royal Mail’s vehicles, will be catered for, and the objections still stand.

The legal process of assessing the stopping up of the roads could be a very long one, and may not end in them being stopped up at all, which will hamper the building and function of the bus station even more. It should indeed have been taken into consideration long before any work even started. Kathy Fishwick via email