SIR – The Department for Transport has announced it was setting up a joint task force to explore “where next for electrification in the North”. This task force will consider routes including Chester-Crewe/Warrington, Sheffield–Doncaster/ Leeds/Manchester, Leeds–Harrogate–York, and Selby–Hull.

Your eagle-eyed readers may have noticed one glaring omission, namely the Calder Valley Line, linking Leeds to Manchester.

I really despair at the Southern-centric blinkered view that the Government has of investment in infrastructure projects anywhere outside the M25.

Does it not realise the strategic importance of the railway line serving the numerous significant communities along the line?

I fear that last may have been a rhetorical question.

I would urge readers to contact their MPs and indeed the Secretary of State for Transport, the Rt Hon Patrick McLoughlin MP, to review the list and include the Calder Valley Line.

Yours increasingly desperate for Northern Independence.

Coun Nader Fekri JP, (Labour & Co-op, Calder Ward), Hope House, Cheetham Street, Hebden Street