Letter: We Propose Reinstatement of Former Railway Lines

Published on: 25 Sep, 2026
Updated on: 25 Sep, 2026

From Richard Pill

CEO, British Regional Transport Association

The British Regional Transport Association (BRTA) sees the following in favour of reopening this rail link with deviations where blockages now exist:

Direct South Coast to Horsham, Gatwick and Guildford rail access for further afield
Save changing at Brighton to get to London
Increased footfall, visitor levels, spend and regenerative flows minus the traffic
More freight off the roads and on the rails with portal connectivity, employment and supply chain stimulus.

We appreciate over the years, like so many places, councils have been tasked with meeting housing targets, but without the former railway infrastructure. Thus all the traffic from residential and industrial expansion goes onto local roads, which then at cost and land-take, are upgraded and so the pattern spirals.

That impacts urban and rural air quality, noise levels and environmental blight.

If we don’t want the pattern, we need to recover select pieces of railway to give modal choices, create modal balance and enable lifestyle choices to 99 per cent car-road dependency cultures.

BRTA calls for a study into reopening Shoreham to Horsham rail link and how problems structural and engineering can be overcome and cycleways re-routed either alongside a railway or diverted to give routeing options.

The amenity can be retained, but rail handles bulk people and goods, is faster end-to-end and opens up areas to inward investment whilst retaining their land mass and natural beauty.

Locomotive at Cranleigh in June 1965.

This may be the last chance, but growing places need more and better rail-based access to and from. We can’t put our heads in the sand and pretend the glaring gap and associated deficits do not exist.

Indeed, were this railway restored to modern standards, it could be part of a regional through route between Brighton and Chichester and Reading/Heahtrow respectively for further afield travel.

At this stage we ask:

the remaining corridor is protected adequate width for a twin-track railway corridor
a policy of relocation where possible to restore the route (Not all houses need demolition, but enough to enable railway recovery or lands adjacent even bypassing growth areas, to enable a railway end-to-end to be functional.)
a study to look at business cases, engineering, environmental impact and feasibility to base policy on and advocate with neighbouring councils and agencies to fund the reopening with full government support and that of leveraging in other investors.

We hope this proposition is considered and that the visionary diagram helps put it in a regional and strategic context.