Rail campaigner slam road plan

Under plans drawn up for Wealden and East Sussex councils by consultants Owen Williams, the new road would swallow up the old station site and send northbound traffic via the former goods yard, across the trackbed and then over the river Uck to the Bell Lane roundabout.

If constructed in this form, the new road would put paid to any hope of rebuilding a proper full-size station with ample car parking on its former site. The alternative, to expand and develop the present station, would be expensive, say the line campaigners, because of its cramped location next to the river.

Campaign Director Brian Hart said the proposals 'practically drive a coach and horses' through the local authorities' own trackbed protection policies which are designed to prevent any development that would prejudice reopening.

'The only reason the Lewes-Uckfield rail link was severed in the first place was to make way for a road in 1969,' said Mr. Hart. 'It seems ironic that yet another road scheme is now seriously threatening the line's chances of ever reopening, just at the time when almost everyone has come to accept that it was crazy to close it in the first place.

'We must not throw away the chance of recreating a tremendously important regional transport asset for the sake of a badly thought out in-town road scheme,' said Mr. Hart.