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RAILWAY BOSSES RUNNING BEHIND THE TIMES
BY JOHN THOMPSON J.THOMPSON
10:40 - 06 April
2007
A parish boss has
launched a stinging attack on railways bosses for believing passenger services
ran through a village 43 years after they stopped.
The Evening Post
reported last week that local people were furious after a chainsaw gang felled a
row of trees which formed the back drop to the redundant railway station in
Pill, near Bristol.
Bosses at Network Rail claimed that the work was
carried out because some of the sycamore and ash trees were in a poor
state.
But parish council chairman Gerry Hunt said this was considered "laughable" because passenger services stopped running in the 1960s.
He said: "If this statement means that trains will imminently return, we will be delighted as this council and most others in North Somerset have been lobbying for this to happen."
Pill is on the old Portishead to Bristol line which campaign groups have wanted reopened for years. Only freight trains currently run to and from Royal Portbury Dock.
Mr Hunt said: "We are aware that some residents raised concerns about the trees blocking light from their properties but they certainly did not want them all removed from the site.
"The removal of the trees has taken away all their privacy and, indeed, one elderly resident is extremely distressed.
"Although one or two of the trees might not have been in the best of health, they were mostly perfectly healthy according to the foreman of the contractors who carried out the works.
"A thinning-out process in the autumn and outside the bird nesting season, together with a courtesy warning to the local community, would have been acceptable.
"As it is, this represents a major environmental disaster, right in the heart of the village."
Network Rail spokeswoman Kirsty Anderson claimed that several residents had written and thanked the authority for felling the trees.
She said: "Whether passenger or freight trains run on the track, we have to ensure that trees which are diseased or in a poor state are felled for safety reasons."
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