Wealden Link

Edwina Currie visited the Wealden Line today to meet Campaign Director Brian Hart and learn the story of the 39-year battle to restore the Lewes - Uckfield link.

The former Conservative minister (seen here with Brian Hart and producer Tony Francis - right) was gathering material for a forthcoming BBC documentary that she is to present, which will look at the effect the Beeching cuts had in the South.

Though the main focus of the programme will be on lines that have been irrevocably lost, the producers were drawn to the Uckfield line because of the long struggle to restore the Lewes link.

In fact, although Dr Beeching's notorious 1963 Report proposed the closure of Buxted, Uckfield, Isfield and Barcombe Mills stations, it is not generally known that even he shied away from closing the line altogether, with Crowborough projected to stay open for its London commuters, along with the link southwards to Lewes.

So even if his long-discredited report had been carried out in full, the Uckfield line would still be open today had it not been for the Lewes Relief Road, pursued in the 1960s by East Sussex County Council, whose "Stage 1" severed the the Lewes - Uckfield section in 1969.

Interviewed by Ms Currie, Brian Hart described the effect of closure as '"catastrophic" for both the remainder of the line north of Uckfield and towns right across the Sussex Weald.

In addition, Ms Currie also interviewed Uckfield Town Councillor Duncan Bennett to establish just why local people still feel so aggrieved about the line's closure almost 40 years after the last train ran.

Another topic covered was the line's potential role today in relieving an increasingly overloaded network.

The programme is expected to be screened this autumn.