4.1.4.1 The old railway alignment had been protected in the Wigan Unitary Development Plan (UDP), between Leigh and Parr Brow, to preserve the option of rebuilding the railway; from Parr Brow the UDP had envisaged that the rebuilt railway would run north-east to a new junction with the Wigan-Manchester line at Walkden. However, a heavy rail link was now considered to be impracticable because of the delay, the lack of adequate forecast patronage to support the heavy construction costs involved, and the sheer organisational difficulty in achieving any such project under present legislation.
4.1.4.2 In addition to the problem of high railway construction costs there would be a need for an ongoing subsidy for a heavy rail option, unlike the busway. In Greater Manchester, heavy rail passenger subsidies in 2000/2001, including those on much more heavily-used lines than a line to Leigh would be, had averaged at £0.26 per passenger-kilometre. Such a subsidy would have to be paid either by the Strategic Rail Authority (SRA) or by the GMPTA, and as the SRA was unlikely to see such a line as a high priority this would mean that the money would have to come from the GMPTA and the local payers of Council Tax. A further drawback was that rail services would be less frequent than bus services. For many areas accessible directly by the busway, this would erode any time saving given by the higher railway running speeds.
4.1.4.3 Metrolink also would require an unrealistic annual patronage of 5 million passengers to justify it, and a 15km extension from its present end at Eccles to Leigh. The capital cost of such an extension would be in the region of £112m. Consideration had been given to the options of an entirely on-road system of bus priorities and an alternative which incorporated these measures to the east and the busway to the west. The busway offered the advantage of a narrow overall width with limited surfacing, on a dedicated traffic-free route, with a good ride and good correspondence between the bus floor and the kerb at stops, but with complete freedom for the busway services also to make use of other roads as part of their route. Such a system allowed space for a parallel recreation route which would have been impossible if the route had been used for a rail service, and this made a very economical use of land resources.
