Urgent: National Grid to close Woodhead Tunnel — 8th Dec walk/ride & ideas please

Nation­al Grid, the UK based Util­i­ties Cor­po­ra­tion, are about to put beyond use the Wood­head Tun­nel, and there­by a trans-pen­nine rail­way line alter­na­tive to the car/road night­mare.

In recent weeks, the Depart­ment of Trans­port have sig­nalled their inten­tion to expand the road net­work and hold back rail alter­na­tives. The Wood­head line between Sheffield and Man­ches­ter and the Mod­ern Wood­head Tun­nel (built in 1954) were closed in 1981, lead­ing to an increas­ing­ly dis­as­trous road traf­fic sit­u­a­tion in the North West of Eng­land and par­tic­u­lar­ly the adjoin­ing area of Long­den­dale.

Nation­al Grid, the UK based Util­i­ties Cor­po­ra­tion, are about to put beyond use the Wood­head Tun­nel, and there­by a trans-pen­nine rail­way line alter­na­tive to the car/road night­mare.

In recent weeks, the Depart­ment of Trans­port have sig­nalled their inten­tion to expand the road net­work and hold back rail alter­na­tives. The Wood­head line between Sheffield and Man­ches­ter and the Mod­ern Wood­head Tun­nel (built in 1954) were closed in 1981, lead­ing to an increas­ing­ly dis­as­trous road traf­fic sit­u­a­tion in the North West of Eng­land and par­tic­u­lar­ly the adjoin­ing area of Long­den­dale.

Whilst Nation­al and local gov­ern­ment have pushed for a destruc­tive Bypass to the A628 trunk road, Wood­head remains shut and alter­na­tives shut out. But the own­ers of the Tun­nel, Nation­al Grid, are mov­ing to close it for good and destroy any hope of future alter­na­tives to the car mon­ster. They plan to relo­cate elec­tric­i­ty cables from the pre­vi­ous Vic­to­ri­an tun­nels to the mod­ern one, start­ing in Feb­ru­ary 2008.

There’s pre­cious lit­tle in terms of action being tak­en against this act of wil­ful van­dal­ism by the State and local cam­paign­ers are desparate for any help they can get. A walk/bike ride is planned for Decem­ber 8th, to coin­cide with the nation­al cli­mate march, but ideas for action are wel­come. For more info (arti­cle to be post­ed soon), see http://nomottrambypass.blogspot.com/ or con­tact stuffyourbypass@gmail.com