WHILE away in Somerset, during the first weekend in April, the main line through Dawlish, Devon, was re-opened after storm damage a few weeks earlier.

As Dawlish is fairly close by to Somerset, the general conversation moved on to the re-opening of the railway between Exeter and Plymouth via Crediton, Okehampton and Tavistock, plus the possibility of the Launceston branch. This line, of course, was closed in the 1960s by a certain Dr Beeching. The alternative route via Okehampton was always used when the line through Dawlish was occasionally shut due to weather damage.

Irrespective of the amount of money to be spent on improvements, nature will always get her way and the problem will rise again in future.

UKIP would support the re-opening of the Okehampton route and, more locally, the Oxford (Kennington) to Princes Risborough route to London – despite viaducts and tunnels to be reinstated and diversions due to housing, etc.

Surely this would be money better spent than on new-build lines such as HS2 – a much more environmentally-damaging project.

UKIP would be much more supportive of new-build rail routes from airports to city centres, electrification to reduce oil dependence and re-opening select closed lines where there is a strong case (Oxford-Witney?) by implementing an ‘un-Beeching Report’, for instance. However, HS2 is not the common sense way to put Britain back on track.

JOHN MADEN, UKIP Oxford, Montagu Road, Botley