Following months of delays and disruptions for passengers travelling to and from London Bridge, London MP’s are meeting with Secretary of State Patrick McLoughlin on Wednesday 18th March to demand action from the Government after Network Rail and the train operator Southern Railways have failed to improve rail services for their constituents.
Harriet Harman MP for Camberwell & Peckham said:
“My constituents pay for and rightly expect a decent service from Southern Railway. It’s totally unacceptable that people are left waiting for hours and not knowing when the next train will arrive. And it’s not safe to leave large crowds jostling on narrow platforms as they worry about not getting to or from work and home on time.
“Many of my constituents use Southern Railways ‘Metro Line’ to travel to and from central London. Network Rail’s own performance data shows that in the last 12 months only 50% of trains on ‘Metro’ line services arrived on time. And in February 2015 this went down to a shocking 42%. Southern Railway also had the highest percentage of services cancelled in February with 8.2% of ‘Metro’ line services lost.
“Myself and South London MP’s Tessa Jowell, Sadiq Khan, Jim Dowd and London Assembly Member Val Shawcross will be meeting the Secretary of State on Wednesday. We will be asking him to take immediate steps to:
*Provide clear leadership and better coordination between Network Rail and Southern Railway
*Review the management of London Bridge
*Improve communications with passengers
*Establish a fair and easy to use compensation system for all passengers affected
“It’s not good enough that passengers have had to deal with this chaos for so long. The Government must step in now and take immediate control to resolve situation”.