New hope for rail buffs in battle to reopen defunct Horsham train track

Members of The English Regional Transport Association have been campaigning for years to reopen a section of track between Horsham and Guildford which has been shut since the 1960s.

But they thought their plans had been scuppered last year when Waverley Borough Council granted planning permission for members of the Wey and Arun Canal Trust - established to reinstate London’s ‘Lost Route to the Sea’ - to build a new link near Guildford which would include part of the old railway.

Now, however, the rail buffs say that a ‘re-run’ of the planning application means they have a ‘golden opportunity to call on councils and other agencies to support the rail option.’

Transport association chairman Richard Pill said: “Canals, cycle paths and footpaths can go along a widened ‘green’ corridor and/or be directed elsewhere.

“Railway links between principal towns are not so easy and using former routes makes some practical sense and does not necessarily exclude others.

“But others exclude/make harder re-railing the corridor.”

He added: “It is not very often we have a chance for a second bite at the proverbial ‘cherry’ but this is a window of opportunity for the rail link.”

The Wey and Arun Canal Trust has previously said that its plans for what it calls the ‘Bramley Link Phase 1’ would begin to connect the Wey Navigation towards reinstated parts of the Wey and Arun Canal.

The link would provide 1,000 yards of new canal from the Wey Navigation by the A281 bridge to a point near the historic aqueduct on Gosden Meadow by Tannery Lane, Bramley, near Guildford.

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