I wish to comment on your article on possible cuts to the Oxford to Bicester Rail service (Oxford Mail, June 10).
If this is the best that the so-called Strategic Railway Authority can come up with, maybe the fact that it is being abolished is not entirely negative.
However, it is still a retrograde proposal. Some of the low passenger levels can be traced back to the time when the service was operated by Thames Trains. They ran it very badly. If stock or staff were short, the Bicester services got the chop, and sometimes without a replacement bus.
The service gained a reputation for being unreliable. The public do not use unreliable services.
Things are much improved under First Great Western Link, but it takes time to live down the earlier reputation.
Given this and the huge amount of extra housing that Bicester is likely to attract under future house building programmes, the proposal is, to say the least, premature.
This line should be developed into an east-west rail link, not cut.
Contrast the situation with Scotland, where lines such at Stirling-Alloa are being reopened, or on the continent, where there is widespread proactive action to develop new rail links, not to downgrade them.
It is symptomatic of the Labour Government's lack of strategic vision in transport generally.
Bob Johnston (Councillor)
Liberal Democrat Shadow
Cabinet Member for Transport
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