RESIDENTS packed a meeting to be told that a subway is the preferred choice for a safe railway crossing in Royston. And district councillors agreed that the best location for the subway will be near to the corner of Morton Street and Green Street. Now eng

RESIDENTS packed a meeting to be told that a subway is the preferred choice for a safe railway crossing in Royston. And district councillors agreed that the best location for the subway will be near to the corner of Morton Street and Green Street. Now engineers have been told by members of the Royston area committee of North Herts District Council to look at the costs of the option. A decision will not be taken until councillors have a breakdown of the costs of the project. But Terry Hartga, speaking for Morton Street residents, said they were opposed to the choice of the site and such a development would be "detrimental" to the area. He said: "What now seems to be the district council's preferred option is not the resident's preferred option. In both questionnaires, the public voted for a footbridge at Coombes Hole." The option of a footbridge has now been abandoned after councillors branded it "too intrusive". Alan Day, of the Coombelands Residents' Association, told the meeting: "If the plan goes ahead (to use the Coombes Hole site), I would like to state now that we will be taking every possible course of action to prevent it happening." Cllr F John Smith said: "There is no perfect solution for this problem. The people who would like to have this crossing are not the people who are adjacent to the sites across the railway." Cllr Fiona Hill believed a subway at the junction of Morton Street and Green Street was the right option. She said the location was nearer the town centre than Coombes Hole and added that it is the site where "trespassing is going to happen the most". Committee chairman Cllr Bill Davidson said he has visited both proposed sites with the police and confirmed that Morton Street-Green Street was where most people illegally cross the line. "The number of places where people are coming across is quite honestly horrific. Why someone hasn't been killed, I don't know," he said. However, County Councillor Doug Drake, who was invited to speak at the meeting, said: "The Coombes Hole area is the better one in terms of construction. I would like to think that you were coming around to that conclusion.