A MONORAIL taking people between some of Bournemouth’s busiest spots could make a major contribution to cutting congestion, a former council leader has claimed.

David Trenchard is seeking to revive proposals that would aim to ease traffic on Castle Lane West by linking it with King’s Park and Bournemouth Airport.

His comments came after the Daily Echo ran a week of features on Dorset’s traffic congestion problems.

The monorail idea attracted interest from Bournemouth East MP Tobias Ellwood when mooted seven years ago and Alderman Trenchard has made attempts to revive it since.

Alderman Trenchard, a previous Conservative leader of Bournemouth council and the chairman of Leatherbarrows Removals and Storage, wrote a report on the issue I 2011.

It said: “Before it is too late we need to tackle the severe traffic and travel problems that surround the JP Morgan site, Royal Bournemouth Hospital and the Bournemouth Law Courts. The route is available now.

“If we really want Bournemouth Airport to serve the conurbation, we need to embrace it into our travel network and take advantage of the car parking potential at this site which will, in due course, improve its links to the A338.”

Work already being funded through Dorset Local Enterprise Partnership aims to improve links form the A338 to the airport.

Alderman Trenchard envisages a monorail that would go from the airport to AFC Bournemouth’s Vitality Stadium, the law courts and JP Morgan.

A tubed walkway could link a monorail terminus at King’s Park with Pokesdown railway station.

“This project is worthy of some considerable investigation as the problems that it could solve are huge and the service to the public would be instant and easy to quantify,” he wrote.

“Removing the traffic would improve the lot of all the other travellers who had to use cars and buses and were unable to cut through all the problems by using this link.”

However, Cllr Mike Greene, Bournemouth council’s cabinet member for transport, was sceptical.

He said: “We have to recognise that it will cost probably an enormous amount of money to be able to cope with the rise in population that we have and the economic prosperity that we enjoy.

“Although it takes up less road space, I don’t really see a monorail as being the most cost-effective option.

“Once we’ve spent the time looking at modal travel for the south east Dorset conurbation, I think the important thing is we identify the areas where we need sustainable transport and then look at what would be the most efficient method of transporting people along those routes.”