Why isn't Colne Connected by Rail?

Yorkshire Post, Letters, 25th June

From: D Swamp, Garden Terrace, Lothersdale.

Today, I am spending my usual 20 minutes sitting in almost stationary traffic, wondering why Colne is apparently built to put people off any inter-county travel. The town sits near the border between Yorkshire and Lancashire and is mostly unremarkable apart from when you mention trying to get through it.

People from both sides of the country will know it as an interruption to their travel plans and simply groan when you mention it. I travel between Skipton and Burnley almost daily and as much as I like the people of Colne, I find that I spend far too much time in their neighbourhood.

Westwards, traffic on the winding but generally free-flowing A56 meets everything else trying to cross the Pennines via Keighley at Colne. Eastwards, a motorway speed journey over the M65 becomes a slow, tedious battle to get through a series of especially constrictive traffic lights and junctions in Colne.

There is no bus priority, so no chance you’ll get through any quicker by public transport.

Surely the train will get you there! But no, despite the good business case and evidence that people do want to make the journey across the border, the ridiculous 1970s decision to remove the railway line between Skipton and Colne has not yet been reversed. I was so hoping to see this featured in the Spending Review, but there was no sign.

The quickest way to get from Skipton to Burnley seems to be by boat…oh no, wait – the Leeds and Liverpool Canal is closed due to low water levels.