THE GMPTE is unremitting in its focus on the immediate vicinity of Manchester, especially the already relatively prosperous suburban area to the south.

It is simply unable to address the real strategic transport needs of the region which includes the huge urban belt stretching from the Wirral to Oldham.

Only an organisation with a truly conurbation-wide overview can hope to solve the problems of the whole conurbation, such as interurban and light rail.

Bolton, despite its status as one of the largest towns in Britain its area of influence is comparable with cities like Coventry or Leicester will never see a modern tram network, because the GMPTE is uninterested in anything that does not tie into the Manchester system.

It is simply failing to take seriously its statutory role as if Lancashire County Council had decided that it would concentrate on Preston, and Burnley did not really matter that much.

What we get instead is ineffectual tokenism a couple of million pounds of "rebate" to compensate Bolton's council taxpayers for the annual robbery the GMPTE represents and a few new bus stops.

There are farcical, half-baked bus lanes such as that between Bolton and Leigh, which did not remove bottlenecks and had to be revised immediately because part of it ran in the wrong direction.

Parts, such as the stretch at Atherleigh, are so badly designed that even buses do not use them.

By the PTE's own figures, journey times at peak periods have actually increased for both cars AND buses!

Now Leigh is about to be fobbed off with the "Is it a tram? No, it's a bus with a glassfibre front" guided busway a less accessible, slower alternative, which will actually reduce the width of the already congested East Lancashire Road. Unbelievable!

These are symptoms of an organisation that simply does not know its constituency.

Scrap it.

Merge it with its Merseyside sister, and include Widnes and Warrington (where it could be based) in the new remit.

At least then we in the Bolton and Wigan areas can look forward to some justice and joined-up thinking.

Andrew Bowyer, Fallowfield Way, Atherton