All-round rail weekend work was a bad plan

This is in the town’s geographical position on the rail network, regarding a choice of routes up to London.

To the east there is the route up to Charing Cross via Hastings, and the longer but slightly faster journey to Ashford/Ebbsfleet, which picks up the Javelin bullet train to St Pancras.

And to the west there is the slightly clunkier journey through Eastbourne to London Victoria.

That makes three potential routes - so one would have thought even with the necessity of engineering work at weekends, at least one would be bus-free for the entire length of the trip.

Unfortunately this wasn’t the case last Sunday - Network Rail managed to carry out engineering work at Ashford International, Robertsbridge and Tonbridge, disrupting journeys on the eastern routes; and track repairs at Lewes and Three Bridges took care of the route through Eastbourne.

It doesn’t take a survey to work out that bus replacement services really annoy and inconvenience passengers - not in the least because it lengthens the journey.

We all know engineering work is necessary to preserve railway safety, but this time round it’s the bad planning which has infuriated Bexhill’s rail pressure groups.