If, like me, you’re a South Eastern Trains commuter, then you’ve probably had some ‘interesting’ journeys to work over the last week. I didn’t get to work at all last Wednesday, then ended up getting the DLR in on Thursday and Friday. Last Friday, I met some old colleagues from Hyde for a drink in town, and we had to finish up at about 8pm so we could get back to south-east London. Once again yesterday, the slightest amount of snow seemed to bring things shuddering to a halt.
Greenwich blogger Darryl has chapter and verse on the various initiatives frustrated commuters and politicians have set up, but I wanted to highlight a campaign my Lib Dem colleague Max Calo is running, for a public refund from South Eastern. Max has discovered that SouthEastern receive £136million in subsidy from taxpayers. He’s asking that they return three days worth – £1.1million – to Network Rail to be invested in improvements at the stations affected. As Max says, ” It’s a practical way to compensate those that for 3 days have been inconvenienced and to publicly acknowledge that it must do better if it wants to keep on running this strategic public service.” Who knows, perhaps it could pay to open up the closed ramps at Hither Green Station to save us crossing bridges to get to most of the platforms..!
To sign Max’s petition, just click here. My Lib Dem colleague Caroline Pidgeon AM, who chairs the London Assembly Transport Committee has written to South Eastern MD Charles Horton, asking some pretty searching questions about his inability to run a railway. I’m ashamed to say that the company ultimately responsible for this shambles hails from my native north east, and also run most of our local buses.
