Closing railway lines has injured England | Letters

David Bricknell on the damage done by John Major's rail privatisation and the setting up of Railtrack, and Alan Whitehouse points out that Scotland and Wales seem far better than England at reopening old lines

Larry Elliott makes very visible the damage done to many of the once thriving towns of England (Without Beeching there might never have been a vote for Brexit, 7 October). What is less clear is the enduring damage done by John Major's rail privatisation and in particular the setting up of Railtrack, which then benefited from disposal of almost half of the land belonging to it and previously belonging to the country.

Short of compulsory purchase there seems no way to reinstate our much-needed rail system. The selling of rail land though is but a small part of the approximately 400bn sale of public land since 1979 and I would suggest that, while much of this isn't very visible, it is and will continue to be the cause of growing resentment throughout the country as a whole.
David Bricknell
Plymouth