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We can learn great lessons from the history at our feet, and nowhere is this most obvious than looking at Sheffield’s great industrial and transport heritage.

Up until the 1970s there were two railway stations in the city centre – Victoria and Midland – the former closed since 1970, the latter now simply Sheffield station – offering many more possible direct journeys by rail than possible at present. It will be very interesting to see if in years and decades to come the former Woodhead route to Manchester via Deepcar, Woodhead and Hadfield will reopen given the changing demographics of both Stocksbridge and society at large.

Years ago if you were born in Stocksbridge you would have most probably ended up working in either the local steelworks or the coal mines. Any necessary journey into Sheffield was possible on the plentiful and cheap local bus services. Nowadays Stocksbridge has many more people commuting to Sheffield or other places for work or study.

There is at present an excellent proposal to reopen the line from Sheffield Centre as far as Stocksbridge under the Government’s Reversing Beeching programme. The Sheffield Clean Air Zone and the need to reduce carbon emissions surely prove that the business case for reopening the line as far as Stocksbridge.

The old Don Valley railway line between Sheffield and Stocksbridge, on which there are plans to revive passenger services. John Clarke took this photo of the section between Deepcar and Stocksbridge, which is owned by Liberty Steel and is still used by freight trains

The need for an expansion of environmentally friendly transport options surely also give the case longer term for restoring the missing link between Stocksbridge and Hadfield to create a second rail route between Manchester and Sheffield, something which would also open up work opportunities.

Matthew Smith

Hillsborough, S6

Letter: Restore the rail route