Ipswich MP Tom Hunt has expressed his frustration after Network Rail announced five more weekends of line closures on the main line to London - starting with the half-term break, which is just days away.

It will be improving drainage between Forest Gate and Maryland stations on the approach to London with trains replaced by a bus link from Shenfield to Newbury Park tube station.

Mr Hunt pointed out that the new work starts the week after Network Rail closed the line south of Colchester for other engineering work.

He said: “Firstly I think it’s important to note that the five weekends involving buses between Shenfield and Newbury Park comes in addition to last weekend when there were buses between Colchester and Newbury Park.

"It will be very frustrating for many of my constituents that the first weekend of disruption comes at the start of half-term.

"Clearly many could have been planning a day trip to London, this will now be made more arduous.

"I appreciate that advance notice of this disruption may have been held on the Network Rail website but the reality is we don’t spend our lives scouring their website and there should have been some wider communications to ensure people planning travel were aware of the planned disruption ahead of time.

"Sadly this is not the first time there has been a failure when it comes to Network Rail communications.

"I appreciate that engineering works need to take place and I understand the reasons why Network Rail prefer to carry out this work at weekends as opposed to the working week.

"However, due to the sheer frequency and length of the weekend disruption we’ve all become so used to at times it feels like replacement bus services have become the norm not the exception.

"It will be interesting to know whether Network Rail believe whether we ever get to the point where such significant disruption is a real rarity. I will be looking to meet with Network Rail representatives over the next few weeks to outline my concerns."

A spokeswoman for Network Rail said they were aware that most passengers booked tickets online - or at least checked Greater Anglia's website before travelling. That would have warned them about the planned line closures.

She said: "We do try to aim to get information out to passengers via the press but this isn’t necessarily a priority like it used to be because most passengers will use Greater Anglia’s app or the website directly and most people will go direct to the train operator rather than Network Rail.

"The press releases aim to explain what the work is and why we’re doing it because this isn’t explained anywhere else."

A spokeswoman for Greater Anglia said the engineering work had been flagged up to anyone booking tickets - and it was best to publicise delays not too long before they came in because sometimes people could forget about planned closures.