So, "economic expert" South-East England Development Agency (Seeda) is saying what the Wealden Line Campaign has been saying for 20-odd years - the Uckfield-Lewes railway should be reopened.

Quite what influence this will have over those who control purse strings is difficult to say - I suspect the usual hot-air response based on glossy excuses to do nothing.

John Major, not many years ago, told us rail privatisation would deliver a "railway that would be the envy of the world".

Take a look at what privatisation has delivered in my neck of the woods, here in Hastings. Electrification of the line to Ashford? Postponed indefinitely due to off-planet costings. Ore station? Total dereliction.

Hastings station? A tip, with the toilets surely the worst in the developed world. Ravenside retail park? No station built to serve this busy centre, which is accessible only by the clogged-up Bexhill Road that runs paral-lel to the railway.

Bexhill station? Little better than Hastings. Restoration of the Eastbourne avoiding line?

Forget it - more conveniently astronomic costings. The Lewes-to-Uckfield line? A railway that should never have closed in the first place, a railway that, if restored, would have huge potential in the direction of both London and Brighton and Hove.

The likes of Major and those in the current government who have done nothing to put right the shambolic privatisation of the railways should be made to have a look at the superb Dutch network and, having done that, be made to stand on soapboxes in Hastings station toilets and tell us who should be envying who.

-Simon Stoddart, The Ridge, Hastings