IF you are a farmer wanting to maximise profit, you raise your chickens, pigs and calves in cruel battery units.

If you are a private train operator, you do the same thing — squeeze as many passengers as possible into as few carriages as possible. That’s the logical and inevitable outcome of privatisation — profit before passengers.

So we in the Green Party say, restore the railways to public ownership as soon as possible, and build a high speed network, save money on roads, allow people to get to work without stress, happier and more productive workers, make overland air travel unnecessary and make a massive contribution to reducing pollution.

A Green government would build hundreds of trains. Who knows, we could even resurrect the Horwich Locomotive Works as a dazzling, hi-tech 21st century reincarnation of its former self.

Graham Chadwick Green Party Candidate Horwich and Blackrod 13 Darley Street Horwich