A REPORT will look into easing Bournemouth’s congestion problems by building a light railway – possibly in the form of a monorail.

A senior councillor says the town could seize an opportunity to take bold action on transport without burdening the taxpayer.

Cllr Mark Anderson, who chairs Bournemouth council’s environment and economy scrutiny panel, has asked officers to bring a report to its September 25 meeting about the feasibility of a light railway system.

The term can cover anything from lighter trains on existing track to radical solutions such as a monorail.

“If you look at the A338, anything that goes wrong with that road, you get gridlock across the town,” said Cllr Anderson.

He said the solution could include a light railway, which might begin by linking the Lansdowne area with King’s Park, JP Morgan, the Royal Bournemouth Hospital area and Bournemouth Airport.

He, along with fellow councillors Eddie Coope and Mark Battistini, want the authority to consider a monorail similar to the skyTran scheme which has been under development with NASA involvement in theUS.

“If we’re going to do something, should we do something that’s a tourist attraction, something that people would come to Bournemouth to use?” said Cllr Anderson.

Bournemouth is about to become part of a larger local authority including Poole and Christchurch, and Cllr Anderson said this could make it easier to access government funding.

“I want to try and push this. We’re about to join a new authority which would give us political goodwill form the government to get something done,” he said.

Bournemouth recently hosted a conference, China: Embracing Innovation, at which Cllr Anderson said potential investors signalled their willingness to back infrastructure projects like railways. “If we’re going to do something, it has to be commercially viable,” he said.

“If it’s got to be commercially viable, we should get someone else to take the risk. We should support it but get somebody else to do it,” he added.

A monorail has been mooted by Bournemouth East MP Tobias Ellwood and former council leader David Trenchard. But the idea received a guarded reaction from council cabinet member Mike Greene, who said he could not see it being cost-effective.