SIR, While the necessity of raising the level of the A338 bridge over the railway line at Grove seems obvious, it cannot be either necessary, nor reasonable, for Network Rail to ride roughshod over the daily journeys of so many people for so long. The nearest alternative bridge crossing is to the east at Steventon. There is no practicable alternative bridge to the west of the A338 that would provide an acceptable alternative route.

Assuming the estimates of the additional journey length and numbers of travellers affected are reasonable, it would appear that in the six-month closure period some 40m extra miles will have been travelled by those regularly using the road. By any measure, that will have cost the local road users around £20m extra and will have caused a significant amount of additional carbon dioxide to have been put into the atmosphere.

Network Rail should at least be required to compensate the people and businesses affected by any closure for the additional costs of travel. Compensation for what is likely to be considerable additional journey times would also be reasonable but most unlikely to be forthcoming.

A requirement of planning consent for Network Rail to provide financial compensation for the extra miles users of the A338 will be forced to travel and to have to purchase carbon credits for the additional fuel use would surely persuade them to provide a temporary bridge during the demolition and construction work.

Bob Dean, Locks Lane, Wantage