WE all know that Bolton once had its own tram system.

There is evidence of this today. If you visit Blackpool, you can see one of Bolton old trams in operation.

We are told that a tram system will not come into Bolton mainly because of the cost.

However, have our transport people looked at alternatives, for example the trolley bus? We had those as well and they were very economical and environmentally friendly.

Readers may want to ask, what can be done today. Well, in fact, trolley buses are used throughout the world, so they are available. We could even build them here as we did before.

The technology is there as the running systems used for trams, i.e. the motors and transmission, could be adapted for a trolley bus.

The power to run this system is electricity, the electricity can be generated by wind power, so effectively we can reduce costs and reduce carbon emissions.

What do our leaders need to do? Basically get government backing for a scheme, plant a few wind turbines around the borough to add into the National grid. This means we get our electricity nearly free. We can also consider additional wind turbines to cover street lighting, and also with a network in place we could see street chargers or depot chargers for electric cars.

The council could have a programme to replace their fleet with electric vehicles over a period.

I will be interested to hear from readers and our leaders on this idea.

Hon Alderman George Dennis Farnworth Bolton