Engineering plan full of promise for future

I write on behalf of the board members of Beighton Villages Development Trust (BVDT) and Beighton Community Partnership (BCP) in respect of recent articles in The Star newspaper relating to the proposed Network Rail development at Beighton.

As community-based organisations actively pursuing local economic and social regeneration, we hope we can provide a balanced view perhaps not in keeping with some comments that have been printed to date, and others that have been made in public at local consultation meetings hosted by Network Rail in and round Beighton.

The core communities of Beighton and Sothall even now continue to suffer the effects of economic and social decline following the steel recession of the 1980s and the pit closures of the 1990s. Only with the funding assistance of the European Union Objective 1 Programme for South Yorkshire, supported by Regional Development Agency Yorkshire Forward, have the communities been able to address the economic and social imbalances compared with the city and national averages.

BVDT and BCP through the funding of eight core projects during the period 2002 to 2008 are delivering a 10.5m portfolio of eight core projects within an 'Integrated Development Plan' (IDP) to regenerate our communities and by March 2008 will have successfully delivered all projects, thereby creating new jobs, new businesses, new factories, within projects that also address social inclusion issues.

From this perspective BCP and BVDT are broadly in favour of the proposed Network Rail development proposals, which will provide 160-plus new jobs, will benefit the economy of village traders and will provide engineering training opportunities for our children. The Network Rail proposals are therefore wholly in keeping with the IDP projects and will provide added value and a welcome boost to assist Beighton and Sothall out of their decline.

Territorially, the intended site of the development is not a contentious site as historically there is past railway activity; it is not fundamentally close to local treasured sites of environ-mental interest; and as we understand matters, would be sensitively implemented to allay all public concerns.

Understandably there will be real local concerns and questions relating environmental, visual and road traffic impact etc, but these are issues that need to be determined to be perceived or well founded.

Peter Scott

Chairman - per pro BCP/BVDT Board members

Beighton, S20