TRANSPORT Department mandarins must explain why they are pulling the financial plug on two major road improvement schemes in Bolton - and their reasons need to be good.

Councillors will hear in a report on Thursday that £1 million earmarked for the chronically congested Crompton Way-Tonge Moor Road junction - part of the A58 ringroad improvement package - is no longer available. Funds for upgrading the Chorley New Road-Beaumont road junction will also be put on ice. Highways chiefs say they have been told that the improvements "failed to meet the basic criteria for continued support". We suggest that the blockheads who have put the brakes on these urgent schemes should try stewing in a traffic jam at the Crompton Way-Tonge Moor Road junction and take another look at their "basic criteria".

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