Letter: Little Bowden bridge objectors need to '˜get over it'!

They will be able to walk and cycle along the Welland Valley in safety to Lubenham.

Of course, there will be detractors that are against such schemes, such as a couple of people who got up at Lubenham Parish Council meeting and condemned the scheme, saying that houses would be broken into by thieves using this route.

From my local knowledge, there is a lane even closer to any houses that recidivists would use to do their dirty deeds.

Public safety is paramount.

I hope the scheme goes forward without any hitches so the public can enjoy it in perpetuity.

So it was of concern when I read in the The Mail that someone wrote in to object to the new bridge across the East Midlands Main line at Little Bowden.

I couldn’t really make out why he was getting so annoyed about it, saying that it “was a bridge too far”.

The link he put to Crossrail, in London, I couldn’t make out the logic of it.

Yes, both are needed, but one is in a crowded city and will alleviate commuter problems and be a useful addition to the transport in London.

The new bridge linking both parts of Little Bowden is needed for the non-motorised section of the public and to save users a huge detour, using narrow back roads.

There has always been a right of way across this land, even before the railway came.

It has been a long time coming, and the crossing has beenillegally closed for several years.

I have contacted Network Rail several times but never received an answer, a temporary closure order should by law been applied for.

I suppose it depends how powerful you are.

It first came to my notice, when there was a footpath diversion notice in The Mail, made by Harborough District Council, which puzzled me, there was no reference to a bridge, and when I got my ordnance survey map out and worked out the route, it did a zigzag route from one side of the railway to the other. How come?

So off I went to the Harborough District Council’s offices to sort it out, but they denied they had anything to do with it.

When I pulled out the cutting, it still took me a minute or two to convince them that it was an order made by them.

Having pondered over Mr Eldridge’s missive on the Little Bowden bridge, I thought his objection should be countered.

As I’m in Northamptonshire, there has been many a battle with the authorities over such structures over the A14, where the then Highways Agency did allow several bridges and an underpass to be put in, and Network Rail to rethink their plans to divert paths and eliminate bridges.

There are always the anti-bridge people hovering in the background to oppose such schemes.

They wouldn’t use them, I expect they think they are personally paying for it.

The public do pay indirectly, but through rates and taxes, but it is all to the public good.

Protestors, when questioned, say they wouldn’t demean themselves by leaving their car, and doing such a thing.

Bob Martin, Desborough