With the promise of thousands of visitors generating new jobs and income a plan to reopen a stretch of picturesque steam railway across rural East Sussex would normally attract enthusiastic support.

Indeed plans by the Rother Valley heritage line to build a two mile extension linking its existing tracks to the national rail network have won the support of several wealthy benefactors, with one anonymous donor contributing £4 million to the project.

But in its path stand two farming families who say they are not prepared to give up the fields they have tended for generations in order to allow the new stretch of line to be built.

Now they face the prospect of having the land compulsorily purchased in order to make way for a the stretch of line linking the villages of Bodiam and Robertsbridge.

Added to the complication of re-opening a stretch of line that shut in 1961 is the fact it would require a level crossing to be erected across the busy A21 trunk road linking the M25 to Hastings and Tunbridge Wells - with the potential to create further delays for motorists.

Furthermore, say opponents, it will leave an “ugly scar” on the landscape, harming wildlife habitats and destroying much of the area’s tranquillity.