I WAS relieved at the outcome of the environmental impact study on the M6 Heysham link.

As I had hoped, it clearly distinguished between the northern and western alter-natives, thus putting an end to the political wrangling that has gone on for many years.

I was particularly pleased that the northern route turned out to be the winner, since the Liberal Democrats were responsible for devising this in the first place when we saw the environ-mentally destructive nature of the western route.

However, it is not such good news that the county council has rejected, even if only for the time being, the Luneside link bridge, since without this it is unlikely that Luneside West could be developed. This was also included in our original scheme.

How much money could have been saved if we had gone ahead with our scheme when we first proposed it in 1993? Since then there have been three public consultations, several environmental studies, an economic study and consultant and counsel advice to pay for.

Moreover the western route would have cost considerably more, despite being designed for most of its length as a single carriageway, as a consequence of which it would have reached capacity within a year or two of completion.

Cllr John Gilbert, Lancaster.