Transport Minister and Liberal Democrat MP Norman Baker wants a more strategic and regional focus to be applied to one of the UK’s top reopening projects. This week he told the Wealden Line Campaign “I believe that the sensible way forward regarding Lewes–Uckfield is to consider it in the context of the railway corridor from Brighton and the South Coast to London”. His comments come after reading a letter, published in February’s Today’s Railways, from a Network Rail employee who spoke of the “full-to-capacity Brighton Main Line”.

Simon Stoddart, who has many years of experience controlling trains at the BML’s busy Three Bridges panel, said: “Before we commit huge sums to a bottomless pit (High Speed Two) – how about attending to the bread-and-butter railway first and filling-in those gaps such as Uckfield–Lewes?” He also drew attention to the soaring success of the Uckfield line with the reintroduction of direct services to London, adding: “the glaring missing piece of this jigsaw is that few miles south to Lewes, with its huge potential for an equally well-used service to Brighton”.

Mr. Stoddart criticized the “excuse to sit on hands” by those who claim East Croydon would need additional capacity. He said merging Uckfield and East Grinstead services at Oxted would overcome this if the Uckfield line was redoubled, extended to the coast and electrified. *(1)

He also said “reopening would not be a challenging project”, believing the biggest obstacles were East Sussex County Council with its latest road scheme across the trackbed at Uckfield station and Government spokesmen such as Lord Attlee “ – yet another politician to change his views from opposition to Government”. With the Brighton Line so overloaded, Mr. Stoddart said the new Brighton–London route “will do very nicely, consolidating business to London and new patronage to Brighton from the Uckfield, Crowborough and Oxted area. There will be the additional benefit of an alternative route to the South Coast with the Brighton Main Line 2 project well worth considering too”.

Norman Baker said “It is quite clear that there is considerable pressure on train paths north from Brighton, particularly in the Balcombe area. The case for reinstatement of Lewes–Uckfield may well rest on the creation of an alternative line from the South Coast to London. That would indeed involve improvements to the line north of Uckfield, including electrification and re-doubling.”

Campaign Director Brian Hart said this was originally the aim of the 2008 Lewes–Uckfield Reopening Study – to show what reopening could do for the route in its regional context as part of a new main line in the south*(2) “However, the final outcome was a skewed study, weakly focusing only on local traffic between Lewes and Uckfield – but of course we know why that happened”.

Norman Baker ended on a positive note by saying: “I continue to believe that the re-opening of the Lewes–Uckfield line makes good railway sense and I have not entirely given up my aspiration to be present for the day this finally happens”.

“With increasing overcrowding and unreliability on the south’s overburdened network, BML2 can’t come soon enough” said Brian Hart.

*(1) “As well as the environmental benefits, electrification of the Hurst Green to Uckfield route would remove the need for the small fleet of diesel trains which currently operate the route. It would also enable joint running again with the East Grinstead services, which reduce the need for additional peak hour slots into London.”

*(2) “If this scheme was to be taken forward then it could be seen as another building block in the development of the Lewes, Uckfield, Oxted and London corridor. Later developments could include shorter journey time, redoubling any single-line sections, connecting into Tunbridge Wells and electrification.”

– Chris Curtis, Network Rail Project Manager Lewes-Uckfield Study. (These are among sections deleted from the final version published by East Sussex County Council in 2008).