A LEWES district councillor says he is fed up with weekend rail closures.

Vic Ient, who lives in Lewes, says it is causing problems for many people.

He said: “When are weekend rail closures going to end and when is the government going to stop jamming up our narrow streets in Lewes with rail replacement buses?

“I am absolutely fed up with the line closures on Southern.

“If the Lewes to Uckfield line hadn’t been closed in 1968, there would be an alternative route to London, but government policy is to put ‘all eggs in one basket’ and route all trains up the crowded Brighton mainline.

“Not only have the residents of Lewes and the surrounding areas put up with years of weekend line closures with replacement buses jamming the narrow streets of Lewes, we now have a nine day closure from the 16th to 24 February plus several weekend closures which will close the line between Lewes and London.

“This closure was meant to avoid lots of weekend closures but Network Rail are continuing with closures both before and after.

“Here in Lewes the ancient Southover High Street was crowded with replacement buses last Sunday, which has become a typical Sunday scene.”

Councillor Ient claims there is a lack of information on the Brighton mainline and Southern websites.

He said: “Neither the new special ‘closures’ Brighton mainline, nor the Southern Railways websites give you enough detail.

“Regarding the four day closure in March locally, Southern says on its website: ‘We are awaiting further details of how Southern are affected by engineering work on this date’.

“The Southern website doesn’t tell you to go to the Network Rail website but that is the only place where you can find actual details needed to plan a journey.

“It seems there is a complete lack of coordination on providing information between Thames Link/GTR, Southern, Network Rail and the Dept for Transport.

“Why isn’t all this information directly available on one website?

“I wonder if their plans have been worked out in detail or are these rail closures like the timetabling debacle of last year.”