Kent and Sussex Courier, 26 January 1969
The South Eastern Traffic Commissioners heard a bitter attack on British Rail at their meeting at Lewes Town Hall on Monday.
In a letter, Mr Glynn Morgan, vice-chairman of Isfield Parish Council slammed the "sorry tactical measures" adopted by the railways in proposing to close the Uckfield Line viaduct at Lewes and instituting single track working at Barcombe Mills.
The Commissioners resumed their hearing of applications for licences to operate the additional bus services which are a condition of the Minister of Transport's consent for the closing of the Uckfield - Lewes line.
Mr Morgan's letter added: "Manifestly, the history of the closure procedures here must show how willingly the lives and needs of people in the Ouse area concerned were criminally discounted for the sake of the Lewes relief road."
The viaduct crosses the route of the relief road.
When the hearing -- adjourned from the end of November -- was resumed at Lewes Town Hall, Major-Gen. A.F.J. Emslie, chairman of the Commissioners, said that since the last occasion "many more letters" he been written to the Commissioners on the matter.
All these had been acknowledged, but those concerned only with the proposal to close the railway, and not the additional bus services, had been forwarded to the Ministry of Transport.
Half-an-hour after opening, the hearing adjourned again -- to move, at Major-Gen. Emslie's suggestion, to another room because of the noise of the traffic outside in the busy High Street.
Mr J. Rourke, the Southdown company's assistant traffic manager, said that analysis of records to find the incidence of late running of buses at Uckfield showed that of 6,110 departures in eight months, 78 were more than five minutes late.
Late running at this point was almost entirely due to traffic congestion along the route, and to some extent, weather conditions.
In the case of the Gravesend-Brighton service, Tonbridge was the worst bottleneck, especially on summer Saturdays when holiday traffic was heavy.
At present, half the buses on the route went through to Gravesend, and half terminated their journey at Tunbridge Wells.
The company, in conjunction were (sic) the Maidstone and District company, was now considering whether the service might be split, with Tunbridge Wells as the terminal point for journeys from both Brighton and Gravesend, so that the result of traffic congestion might be confined to one section of a route.
Mr Rourke said that no satisfactory solution had been found to the problem of buses leaving Uckfield at 42 minutes past each hour, which in the off-peak period was two minutes after the arrival of a southbound train at Uckfield.
It was felt that five minutes should be allowed for passengers to get from the railway station to the bus station, which would mean retiming the bus seven minutes later, upsetting timings all along the rest of the route.
British Rail were unable to alter their timetable in any way.
"The company has looked at the problem from every angle, bearing in mind the need for co-ordination -- not only at Uckfield," said Mr Rourke.
"The only possible way is that the bus might be delayed only four minutes to leave Uckfield at 46 minutes past each hour, giving a two-minute margin between train arrival and bus departure.
He suggested that this might be tried experimentally, but the company could not guarantee a connection.
Major-General Emslie said that one of the difficulties the Commissioners had been faced with was trying to understand the proposals of the bus companies in relation to the rail services.
"the advocates for the company have put in documents in respect of the passengers who have been travelling by train for whom they propose alternative bus services," he said.
"The Commissioners heard a fair amount of evidence about this on a previous occasion, but in going through the transcript they find they are still not clear that the proposals by the bus companies are adequate, or make up an adequate alternative to the existing train service."
Mr J.C. Clymo, the Southdown traffic manager, said that the proposals were those of the Ministry of Transport.
Major-General Emslie told him that he appreciated this, but the Commissioners had to satisfy themselves on behalf of the public that they were adequate.
He went on to examine Mr Rourke on details of connections, timings and passenger loadings of the buses.
When Mr Clymo gave evidence later he said that cutting the line in two would seriously diminish facilities for someone travelling from Tunbridge Wells to Brighton.
In his opinion and that of his colleagues, "transport men," the volume of traffic would be nothing like the amount shown on documents which had been submitted.
Mr F Harrison, of Beech Cottage, Hadlow Down, read a statement by Mr H.R. Wilkinson, who was unable to attend through illness, in which he referred to concern for children from the area attending schools in Lewes and beyond.
They might have to leave home at 7.45 a.m., and spend a total time of 67 minutes each day in public transport.
For the elderly, the infirm and parents with prams, the combined rail and bus journey would be difficult.
Mr Wilkinson's statement added that he feared that traffic on the rest of the line would fall off, and this would eventually lead to proposals being put forward for closing the remaining sections.
Mr A.R. Mordaunt of Pippins, Buxted, said that a time factor would be created by "this big hole in our railway system."
Before the new timetable was introduced on Janaury 6, the journey from Buxted to Lewes took 22 minutes; the proposed rail-bus journey would take 61 minutes.
The deputy-clerk of East Sussex County Council Mr W.R. Edwards told the Commissioners that the council was examining the possibility of the Hamsey loop line being constructed, and whether the Minister was able to reverse his decision so as to require the continuance of a railway service between Lewes and Uckfield via the loop.
The county council found it difficult to appreciate why the Minister required additional bus services to be provided on route 122 (Lewes-Tunbridge Wells - Gravesend), as it might be difficult for passengers to reach the bus stop when the road from Barcombe was flooded.
Generally, the council supported Chailey Rural Council's objections to the proposed bus services and it urged that an additional late bus should be provided on Mondays to Fridays, between Lewes and Barcombe.
Mr Glynn Morgan's letter said the Press had reflected the consensus of informed onion on "the devious actions of British Rail" to force the closing of the line in recent months.
"there is no adequate measure ... that can be made of the miseries, the indignities and the frustrations that have arbitrarily been thrust on the student and other working population in the journeys to Tunbridge Wells via Lewes and southwards to Falmer and Brighton.
"The sorry tactical measures adopted for the closing of the viaduct and single track working to Barcombe Mills have angered communities throughout the region."
He urged the Commissioners to find means to channel these people's opinions and hard experience to into action for the equitable alternative of constructing the Hamsey loop line with the aid of a social grant or rate support.
Extended bus services, it was felt, could never be "equivalent" to rail services, nor was it considered that British Rail would be capable of maintaining dependable substitute services without constant recourse to Ministerial consents for variation of services as population grew and conditions of carriage changed.
"It is our sure conviction that in this matter of closure there has been a tragic miscalculation and undervaluation of many economic and social factors to facilitate the construction of Phase I of the Lewes Relief road.
Education, unemployment, rural depopulation, flood hazards, speedy mustering of emergency services in high risk flood areas, access to social services, hospital centres, welfare sources are among those."
Major-General Emslie said at the resumption of the hearing on Tuesday that both he and his colleague, Ald. F.A. Wade, of Gillingham, had independently tried the experiment of walking from Uckfield railway station to the bus station to see how long it took.
They felt that a four-minute margin should be allowed for rail passengers transferring to the bus.
During further questioning, by Major-General Emslie, Mr Rourke said that the company would not favour diverting buses on services 119 and 122 via Lewes railway station because there were important stops on the existing route through the High Street, and because of the difficulties of traffic management in one-way streets and increased mileage.
Asked if he would accept ten minutes as the time taken to walk from the bus station to the railway station, Mr Rourke said that he would allow eight minutes.
Mr D.R. Walden-Jones, clerk of Chailey Rural Council asked what would be the position of people who might prefer to change from bus to train at Lewes in order to obtain a cheap day return ticket.
Mr Rourke said that in any circumstances where passengers were changing it was extremely likely that the cost would be higher, because, generally speaking, fares tended to "taper" with distance.
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Questioned about traffic congestion, Mr Rourke said that there was a 12.8 percentage (sic) of late running through Lewes on the 119 and 122 routes, compared with 1.28 per cent at Uckfield.
"The sooner the relief road is built, the sooner we should get some easing of the traffic problem," he said.
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