Liberal Democrats slam plan to stop Thameslink trains at Blackfriars

1.00.00pm BST (GMT +0100) Sat 24th May 2008

Chris Nicholson, the local Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Spokesperson for Streatham, has slammed plans announced in the South London Route Utilisation Strategy for all Thameslink trains from Streatham and Tulse Hill to stop at Blackfriars from 2015.

Chris Nicholson is campainging against plans to cut back on services to central London from Tulse and Streatham Hill.

The plans, which were not in the original proposals which were consulted on earlier this year, would mean that travellers from Streatham and Tulse Hill would no longer be able to catch a direct train to connect with Eurostar at Kings Cross St Pancras or to go straight through to Luton Airport or Bedford. In addition peak hour services to Blackfriars from Tulse Hill will drop from 5-6 trains per hour currently to only 4 per hour in 2010.

Chris commented, " 2015 may seem a long way off but we must stop these plans before they get off the drawing board. Streatham and Tulse Hill are poorly connected to central London as it is and this will make things much worse. First we had Labour's plans to have a Cross River Tram which would not cross the river and now we have this further proposal to sever cross London links. We will be campaigning hard to ensure that this cross-London link is not lost, and for the frequency of trains from Tulse Hill to be maintained"