In his latest column the Radstock Mayor reports some sad news:

Well, they say that November is the month of the dead but what I am reporting as deceased is not a person but a project that I and half a dozen colleagues have devoted the past six years.

I refer to the proposal to reopen the GWR extension between Radstock and Hapsford Junction, some five miles of disused track which could be relaid and reconnected to the existing mineral line. Access to Bath, Bristol, Swindon, London and the South Coast would be possible at Westbury.

To the ever- increasing population of the Somer Valley this would have been a lifeline. Instead of the continual frustration and time wasting engendered by queuing in and out Bath and Bristol, the railway would have facilitated a comfortable journey to work and back.

We may have lost this round but don't intend to give up. Our survey of over a thousand commuters tells us that the railway must be restored sooner or later and we shall continue to lobby the Government via our MP until this happens.

Let's hope this will be in the not-too-distant future.