Save the South London Line - our submission

The deadline for responses to the draft South London Line Route Utilisation Strategy is this Friday. We decided that as well as the petitions it would be best to send one response from all the Southwark Labour councillors as together we all represent the areas of Peckham, Camberwell and Bermondsey affected by the proposed cuts to the South London Line. We've also sent it to the council officers preparing the official response from Southwark Council and we hope they will respond in similar terms.

We are writing to express our sincere disappointment in the proposed options for service changes included in the South London Route Utilisation Strategy and strenuous objection to any curtailment of services from Denmark Hill, Peckham Rye, Queens Road and South Bermondsey to London Bridge and Victoria stations. Such a move would adversely affect many of our constituents who currently use the line and is contrary to the interest of Southwark more widely.

The specific reasons for our objection are as follows:

Southwark already has bad public transport links to central London with journey times that are very poor relative to the distances travelled. The borough does not have any underground stations south of Elephant and Castle and large numbers of our constituents have access to no other form of public transport than the bus service. There would be, therefore, no satisfactory alternative for South London Line users (particularly at Denmark Hill, Peckham Rye and Queens Road) to switch to were the service cut, greatly inconveniencing a significant number of individuals who reside or are employed in the borough.

We welcome any investigation into the expansion of existing services including development of a new Camberwell Green station. Any reduction in services, conversely, is not acceptable.
Passenger numbers on the services are high. The report concedes that, despite accusations of under-promotion, overcrowding is already a problem on the South London Line with trains and stations already at saturation, a sentiment that is echoed by correspondence with our own constituents. To suggest that the service is eligible for cuts due to failing demand, therefore, is unreasonable, and the prioritisation of services coming in from outside London unjustifiable.

Making services more infrequent (or scrapping them all together) would have the combined affect of dramatically inconveniencing rail users by decreasing regularity and increasing overcrowding and would discourage individuals from using the line in the future. Whilst we welcome the proposed extensions to the East London Line with enthusiasm, the promise that services to Southwark will improve when the extensions are complete (at some unknown date) is of no comfort to us.

Denmark Hill station is important for access to King’s College Hospital. The primary care trust has expressed particular concern that cutting services to Denmark Hill would severely hamper accessibility to King’s College for patients, many of whom travel from across the borough and from other parts of London. So important is the station for access to the hospital by patients that the Department for Transport recently recognised it as a priority for accessibility works. Any cut in services would render accessibility improvements to the station redundant and run in direct contradiction to the DfT’s current recognised priorities.

Further to this point, we think that issues of access must be a priority for an effective Rail Utilisation Strategy to be realised. We remain confident in the utmost that yet more local people would use the South London Line if all of the stations identified for this proposed cut in service were made accessible for the disabled, the elderly and others.

The primary care trust is also concerned that service changes would make King’s College Hospital more inaccessible for staff and medical students, many of whom currently use the South London Line to move between King’s College and Guy’s Hospital near London Bridge Station, a concern that we would like to reiterate.

The South London Line will act as a link between Southwark’s administrative and civic centres. In the near future, thousands of Southwark Council staff are planned to move into a new administrative centre for the local authority on Tooley Street near London Bridge. The South London Line in its current state will provide a necessary link for staff and residents to Tooley Street. Cutting services to London Bridge, on the other hand, from Peckham Rye, Queen’s Road, and South Bermondsey and scrapping them from Denmark Hill would severely impede accessibility to the borough’s new administrative centre.