Investment neededin railways, not road

I READ with interest the front page Fresh Bid For The Link Road and despair politicians are pressing ahead with this '˜road to nowhere', linking with the slow and frequently congested A21. The money would be far better spent on rail infrastructure improvements that would have a much bigger and longer-lasting benefit to Bexhill, Hastings and the surrounding area.

Such improvements are desperately needed to address the gross injustice of Bexhill being only 51 miles from London, but having train journey times equivalent to towns 150 miles from the capital. Due to infrastructure investment in the Chiltern area, travellers from Banbury in Oxfordshire (almost identical population to Bexhill and 64 miles from London) can now reach the capital in 53 minutes. A typical rail journey from Bexhill to London takes 131 minutes.

No wonder then, that only the brave and despairing commute on a daily basis to London from Bexhill, and unemployment in the Bexhill area is about four times that of Banbury.

If the £29m found under the county council mattress was invested instead in upgrading the Marshlink rail line from Hastings to Ashford, then high speed Javelin trains could travel from Bexhill to London (and vice versa) in a little over an hour.

Bexhill would at last be as accessible as other towns relatively close to the capital, such as:

Cambridge: 51 miles (like Bexhill) from London; 48 minutes by train; Reading: 41 miles/26 minutes by train; Winchester: 62 miles/58 minutes; Brighton: 46 miles/51 minutes; Huntingdon: 57 miles/47 minutes; Peterborough: 75 miles/54 minutes

Fast journey times are needed not just for commuters but holidaymakers and day trippers - a lot of money is being spent on Bexhill’s seafront - presumably to attract visitors, rather than as an exercise in landscape gardening?

So I call on our local politicians to think again and invest in rail improvement projects which will increase job opportunities in the Bexhill area – for commuters and the existing and new businesses in Bexhill that will benefit from the money that commuters and visitors spend locally.

GARETH SMITH

Peartree Lane

Bexhill-on-Sea