Like David Silver, I welcome the proposal for Wisbech to be put back on the rail network (letters, December 12).

However, he is naive to think that improved bus services will follow.

The council is quite clear that we can have a railway as that is capital spending, therefore money which can be borrowed. We cannot have improved bus services as that is revenue and there is not the money in the budgets for that.

The fact is, as your article on the preceding page about the county council budget shows, we are more likely to see cuts in bus services for at least the next five years.

Victoria Gillick raised some pertinent points that need to be addressed if the return of the railway is going to benefit all in Wisbech and not just an elite.

It can help to overcome some of the high levels of deprivation in the town if the right policies are pursued before, and in conjunction with the railway re-opening.

This includes creating genuinely affordable housing (to rent as well as buy) and sustainable jobs on at least a living wage.

However, unless many of the recent employers that have come into the town change their employment policies, and the next government restores at least some of the employment protection rights that have been taken away over the past three decades, we will continue to see the growing divide between wealthiest and poorest with all the consequent ills for our community.

Without the right policies on housing, jobs, incomes and an integrated public transport system the railway could even make the situation worse for some.

SUE DOCKETT

Quaker Lane

Wisbech

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