Transport for London (TfL) is to take over the Southeastern Railways franchise which carries so many constituents to and from work in London every day. This is something that local Conservative MPs have advocated to the Mayor of London for some years now.
The urgency of this change has been highlighted by Southeastern’s failures over the last month or so which have caused great inconvenience to everyone – including Bob who uses Shortlands Station every day he goes to and from Parliament.
It is therefore good news to learn that TfL is now scheduled to take on the franchise possibly in 2018. In confirmation of this a parliamentary debate took place on 28 January. Bob Stewart spoke in the debate and stressed that he hoped TfL could get that Southeastern Railways franchise as soon as possible. But he also warned that failures were not always down to Southeastern and that Network Rail often caused considerable delays too. He suggested that TfL would …”still have the problem of Network Rail to sort out”. Unfortunately in order to fix tracks it is inevitable that trains will be disrupted and some parts of the rail track really do need fixing.
Nonetheless, all round, Bob believes the proposed change in franchise should make our main railway routes into and from London better. It will get even better soon when London Bridge Station improvements are finished. All this is good news for so many constituents who, like Bob himself, rely on trains to get to and from work in London.