YOUR article on commuting to London (March 28) will have struck a chord with many readers. It is a sad fact of life that very few people now have the luxury of a 20-minute journey to work (even travelling into York from Woodthorpe this morning has taken longer than that).

For many the only way to secure employment is to travel (at considerable cost), or face the upheaval of uprooting their families and relocating - and all too often the differential between housing costs and the problems of finding suitable schools etc, make relocation impossible.

While Philip Benham's daily journey is impressive, he is not unique in travelling from York to the capital each day.

What does differentiate him, however, is that most of his fellow passengers have to pay a considerable amount of money for their yearly travel (£7,956 for standard class, £11,936 for first class) unlike Mr Benham who will, I am sure, receive free first class rail travel as part of his package with the Association of Train Operating Companies.

J Clark,

Dee Close,

Woodthorpe, York.

Updated: 10:40 Wednesday, April 04, 2001