I was disappointed, although not surprised, to read the views aired by the Gatwick Airport Consultative Committee in your issue of July 30.

They complain that when the timetable changes this December that those Gatwick Express services starting from Brighton may be overcrowded by the time they reach Gatwick Airport.

This is unfortunate for your poor Gatwick traveller who does possibly one round journey a year but I'm afraid your hard pressed commuter experiences these conditions every day.

The whole point of the timetable changes in December is to balance more evenly the loadings on the Gatwick Express and the commuter services used by people who actually live on and use the Brighton main line every day. How often have those commuters standing on a packed train watched a Gatwick Express sail by with maybe a dozen people on board? Those trains occupy line capacity that could be better used to relieve overcrowding on commuter trains.

In fact the DfT review (Brighton Line RUS) was so skewed in favour of retaining the dedicated airport service that the Gatwick Express is almost unchanged retaining its 15-minute interval non-stop service throughout the day. The only concessions were that six trains in the morning peak would start from Brighton whilst six in the evening terminate there. Hopefully also the transfer of the service to Southern, the company responsible for most of the Brighton line service, will mean better integration and an end to the pointless competition between them and Gatwick Express.

I'm afraid that the Gatwick interests will have to accept that the trains are also used by those living locally and I hope we will see further changes that benefit us. It will also be interesting to see how demand for the airport service is affected by the economic downturn which is hitting the airline industry particularly severely. Who knows, the proposed enlargement of a number of airports may now appear to be an extravagant folly.

John Daniels, Redhill representative, Reigate, Redhill and District Rail Users Association, Redstone Park, Redhill