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RAIL commuters will be able to travel from Chingford to Stratford direct by 2025, according to Cllr Terry Wheeler.

Transport users have long been frustrated by the inability to travel the short distance, via Walthamstow and Leyton, on one train.

Currently, cars, buses, cabs or indirect trains are the only methods of doing the journey, which is only a few miles.

For a number of years, the idea of re-opening the Hall Farm Curve train line on Walthamstow Marshes has been suggested.

Last Thursday, Cllr Wheeler said that Transport for London (TfL) has pledged to re-open the line in a document entitled Transport 2025.

Speaking at a meeting of the Walthamstow and Lea Bridge Community Council, he said: "We have been definitely promised that it will happen sometime before 2025, but we hope to bring it forward.

"It is the first time we have seen anything in writing about it."

Cllr Wheeler said the problem with the existing poor rail links was caused by the way transport in London originated.

He said: "Everything is set up to get people from the outside into the centre. There is a problem if you want to move in a lateral direction.

"It is very difficult to get from Walthamstow to Stratford, which is ridiculous; it is only a couple of kilometres away."

The re-opening of the Hall Farm Curve could see a multi-million redevelopment of Lea Bridge Road station, Lea Bridge Road, which closed in 1985.

Cllr Wheeler said: "Lea Bridge Road station is currently inaccessible as a station. TfL will not open it in its present form. It will have to spend several million pounds on it."

A spokesman for TfL said: "TfL has been examining the rail link between Walthamstow and Strat-ford, known as the Hall Farm Curve, as part of its plans for meeting the demand for rail in the capital.

"There is a commitment in the long term vision for London, detailed in the Transport 2025 document, but there is no current work taking place on the project."

The spokesman added that if the Hall Farm Curve was to re-open, Lea Bridge Road station would be re-developed as well.

11:19am Friday 15th September 2006

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