Southeastern Railway bosses blasted at town hall meeting for axing trains

By Joe Coughlan, Local Democracy Reporter

Southeastern Railway was criticised at a council meeting last week after it refused to back down from controversial timetable changes.

Last month, Southeastern Railway announced changes to its current timetable which meant most trains on the Woolwich and Bexleyheath lines would no longer end at Charing Cross.

From December, passengers will now need to change at London Bridge to access Waterloo and Charing Cross stations.

At a transport meeting for Greenwich council on October 20, Steve White, the managing director for Southeastern Railway, said the planned timetable was “hardwired in” and cannot be changed because train operators had already agreed to it.

The rail representatives also said that those who travelled to work five days a week were “in a minority”, and their 2021 report showed punctuality and reliability were shown as being more important to customers than comfort or the length of their journey.

In response to the boss’s statement, Councillor Lauren Dingsdale said: “What worries me about the rationale you’ve given is that I can understand punctuality and reliability are incredibly important, but you haven’t asked if people would prefer that to having Charing Cross taken away from them.”

Scott Brightwell, operations and safety director for Southeastern, said sticking with the current timetable “was not an option” because it was not “sustainable” and wouldn’t “deal with future growth”.

Cllr Dingsdale also said that areas in Kent sitting in Conservative constituencies, such as Maidstone, had seen increased services under the new timetable.

She said: “Just so that we’re all clear in this room, because this is a Labour borough and there are three Labour constituencies here, is it the case that all the winners from the new timetable are Conservative areas and all the losers are Labour seats?”

Mr White said that Southeastern would never design a timetable “to that effect”, and that the Maidstone service is part of a commitment to Thameslink.

When asked about why the changes were not communicated sooner, Mr Brightwell said the announcement was interrupted by the appointment of Liz Truss as Prime Minister and the mourning period for the Queen.

Pictured top: Alex Hellier, head of strategic planning for Network Rail, Scott Brightwell, operations and safety director for Southeastern Railway, and Steve White, managing director for Southeastern Railway at the Greenwich council meeting (Picture: Greenwich council)