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Commuters call for rail improvements
COMMUTERS campaigning for rail improvements between Eastbourne and London have lobbied the Shadow Secretary of State for Transport, Theresa Villiers, at the House of Commons.
Members of the East Coastway Commuters Group, Bexhill Rail Action Group and Eastbourne MP Nigel Waterson met the shadow minister to press for improvements to local rail services.
The meeting formed part of a dialogue between local rail groups and the three main political parties in the run-up to the general election, and follows on from a meeting with Secretary of State for Transport Lord Adonis in Eastbourne in September. The groups all expressed dissatisfaction at services on the line between Hastings, Bexhill, Eastbourne and London, and outlined suggestions for medium and long-term improvements.
At the meeting, Mr Waterson highlighted the withdrawal of peak-hour capacity seen on services between London and Eastbourne during a timetable change in December 2008 and the perceived lack of consideration for rail services to East Sussex compared with elsewhere on the Southern network.
Mrs Villiers was also briefed about plans for house-building and population growth in Bexhill, Hastings and Eastbourne over the next 20 years.
This expansion is projected to take the combined population of Bexhill, Hastings and Eastbourne to more than 300,000 by 2031.
Despite this being greater than that of Brighton and Hove, campaigners complain that rail services lag significantly behind in terms of both speed and frequency.
Belinda Fordham, chairman of East Coastway Commuter Group, said, "Despite the considerable number of quangos involved both in running and regulating the railway, there is a detachment and lack of understanding of the actual issues we are experiencing, which are overcrowding, slow and irregular services and no joined-up planning for the future. Large amounts of taxpayers' money fund bodies such as Passenger Focus, the South East Regional Transport Board and the Sussex Rail Partnership, yet it clear that we are receiving extreme poor value for money locally when it comes to railways.
"Despite a lot of input from local rail users, recent proposals such as the Kent and Sussex Route Utilisation Strategies, and a consultation document for the new timetable in 2010 either ignore our needs or propose arrangements that are worse than at present."
Concern was also expressed at proposals to abandon the direct service from Ashford to Brighton, replacing this with two local stopping services, and no overall improvement in connection times at Ashford International for the high-speed service into London St Pancras.
Mrs Villiers empathised with the issues raised and agreed to pressure central government to make fundamental changes to the way rail infrastructure is managed and financed in the UK.
She also supported the getting European funding to upgrade local rail infrastructure to enable fast services from Eastbourne, Bexhill and Hastings to Thames Gateway, London Docklands and St Pancras using the existing high-speed rail link and the Marshlink line via Rye.
Campaigners say this would resolve many of the service quality issues on the East Coastway, which are caused by capacity limitations on the Brighton Main Line.
The meeting concluded in agreement that all involved would work together to achieve short-term capacity improvements.
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Weather for Eastbourne
Saturday 26 May 2012
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Temperature: 13 C to 22 C
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