SIR - The strategic body Transport for the North has recently confirmed that work is at an options appraisal stage for pushing a major new dual carriageway route through our area. The intention is to create a new crossing of the Pennines that will run from the M65 at Colne right through to the A1(M).

It doesn’t take a genius to work out the amount of traffic such a route would attract. Or how long it would be before it was as busy, crowded and slow moving as the other Pennine motorways. Or how much extra air pollution locals will have to breathe in alongside the lung fulls of pollutants pumped out by the Aire Valley incinerator. Or indeed how much disruption local communities would have to go through whilst it was being built and afterwards.

During the early part of 2019 the initial economic appraisal will be completed and we will know how much extra traffic this will generate in the Crosshills area and whether it will run past Silsden and Keighley or Skipton.

If readers have a view I am sure the people who are quietly conducting this review would love to hear them at the earliest possible stage so that they can quickly put an end to the crazy idea that we are going to modernise the northern economy by covering more of it in tarmac.

Transport for the North can be contacted via the following link: transportforthenorth.com/about-transport-for-the-north/contact-us/

Cllr Andy Brown

Green Party Parliamentary Candidate for Skipton and Ripon

Main Street,

Cononley