Clive Efford has raised his concerns in Parliament about the dangerous overcrowding on train services and platform due to the alterations to the timetables during the refurbishment work at London Bridge.

He says, “Southeastern should have made sure that trains going to and from Cannon Street stopping at London Bridge had additional capacity to cope with the extra demand.  The government has adopted a wait and see approach to force people to find alternative routes but the situation is too dangerous for that.  We are demanding that extra carriages are provided now.  We have been promised 12 car trains on our part of the network for many years and it’s time that we got them.  Our train services have been overcrowded for too long.

In his speech this morning Clive quoted David Statham Southeastern Managing Director’s response to the latest customer satisfaction survey which shows that his rail company is the worst in the country.

Statham had said: “Over the next three years we’re investing more than £70m in the things that our passengers tell us are important to them. This investment will enable us to provide better information to our passengers, improve the interior and cleanliness of our trains, refresh the look of our stations and provide extra staff to deliver more face-to-face customer service.”

Clive complained that , “There is nothing in this statement that suggests that Southeastern have any intention of increasing capacity on the trains.  Southeastern can provide the cleanest most punctual trains with the most up to date information service but if passengers cannot get on the trains it’s all a waste of money.”

“We need to make sure that Southeastern are able to purchase the Thameslink Trains when they are replaced by the new rolling stock so that we can increase capacity on our local services.”

Clive has also met with Southeastern Trains to demand to know why some services in and around the peak times are only four carriages in length.  Clive adds, “When I raised this with Southeastern they denied this occurs, despite the fact that I was left on the platform when the train left London Bridge.  Southeastern want to know the specific details of the trains so I am asking my constituents to let me have details of trains that are overcrowded and of how many carriages they were formed.”

Clive wants to hear from anyone who has details of train journeys that are overcrowded and would be grateful if they could let him know here.