MP Amber Rudd speaks at the AGM of the Marshlink line community rail partnership.

Marshlink and other rail issues in the spotlight

The Marshlink line ends the year on a high, with regular Sunday services returning to Three Oaks and Winchelsea as from 13 December. The news was released by Kevin Boorman, chair of the Marshlink line community rail partnership. Meanwhile MP Amber Rudd is campaigning on three rail fronts. Nick Terdre reports.

The partnership had been campaigning for the restoration of the Sunday services to Three Oaks and Winchelsea for many years, Mr Boorman said in the wake of its annual general meeting in Rye on 27 November. He also paid tribute to the line’s community rail development officer, Kevin Barry, “for the tremendous job he has done this year in building partnerships along the line. We have had Captain Pugwash events, community art and music projects, a much better environment around our stations, and a much greater awareness of the Marshlink line because of his efforts.”

The AGM was also addressed by local MP Amber Rudd, Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, and David Scorey, director of local train operator Southern. “Both guest speakers talked about the problems of overcrowding on certain trains, and what is being done to deal with these, and there was a lot of interest in Marshlink electrification,” said Mr Boorman. “There was a lively, but good-natured, question and answer session after the presentations.”

The Marshlink line also featured in a statement on local rail issues released by Ms Rudd earlier this week. “Over the last few weeks there has been some real progress on my three main rail campaigns – working towards bringing High Speed Rail to our area, boosting capacity on the Marsh Link line and improving connections between the Hastings campus and the rest of the University of Brighton,” she said.

“Last week the Chancellor of the Exchequer reiterated his support for the extension of High Speed Rail to Rye, Hastings and Bexhill. This scheme will be assessed next year in Network Rail’s Kent Route Study. This will help inform the decision on funding from 2019.”

Ms Rudd said she was in the early stages of setting up a working group composed of local MPs, councillors, council officers, campaigners and other rail and business leaders to make the case for a high-speed rail link to government.

She was also in contact with the Department for Transport and Govia Thameslink Railway – which operates Southern services – to see what could be done to increase capacity on the Ashford to Brighton line, where services are often overcrowded.

She was also pushing the Department for Transport and GTR to extend the scope of their Unizone product to Hastings to allow University of Brighton students who need to commute between its campuses to receive discounted train travel – trips to the Hastings campus are currently excluded.

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