I HAVE been too long in the business to carry any flags for Dr Mike Mitchell and the rail division of the Department for Transport.

The criticisms offered by J Marsden in the The Bolton News letters page on March 15 are more than justified, but there should be other names in the frame as well.

Dr Mitchell, when push comes to shove, is only a civil servant and, by force of circumstance, a Treasury lackey. And we all know that the Treasury doesn't like spending money on railways.

But some blame surely also applies to all of those Labour MPs who will cheerfully vote to spend somewhere between £20 billion and £76 billion on renewing a nuclear missile system that has no practical military application, yet are either unwilling or incapable of persuading the Treasury to cough up enough investment to give us a transport system comparable to those of our European neighbours.

I understand Cabinet ministers cancelled planned light rail systems in Leeds and Liverpool because projected costs rose by 50 or 60 per cent, but they still contemplate overspending on highway schemes of between 78 per cent on the A303 Stonehenge and 280 per cent on the M74 extension, north of Carlisle.

Not to mention the increase in cost of the 2012 Olympics, which has jumped from £2.4 billion to £9.3 billion.

How much good will any of that do the north of England? Level playing field, anyone?

Peter Johnston Kendal Road Bolton