LETTER: Preserve vital Streatham train links (From Your Local Guardian)

It's hardly the case that residents of Streatham etc. will be "totally cut off" as the letter suggests. Terminating the Sutton loop services at Blackfrairs will allow the frequency of trains to be doubled i.e. every 15 minutes in both directions around the loop. Passengers wanting to go onwards to the City or beyond have then simple change at Blackfriars where there will be a train every 2-3 minutes heading north. Yes there will be a change involved, but lifts will be available and half the time it would be just a step-free cross-platform interchange.

Terminating the trains at Blackfriars would probably result in a more reliable service, as the loop would be more self-contained. How many times recently have problems up at somewhere like Hampstead or Bedford resulted in FCC cancelling all the Sutton trains at the drop of a hat? With the new track layout at Blackfriars, running Wimbledon loop trains right through the station would result in more conflicting train moves, increasing chances of delays and reducing the overall frequency of trains that can run through the Thameslink ‘core’ (Blackfriars to St Pancras) – defeating the point of all those years of engineering work.

Furthermore, if the Lib Dems have read the proposals properly they will discover that it’s nonsense that "passengers from Brighton benefit from 24 trains an hour". The ‘24’ figure refers to the planned total number of trains per hour through the core and will, in fact, be comprised of services not only from Brighton (only 4 trains per hour planned) but also Horsham, Three Bridges, Caterham, Grinstead, Sevenoaks, Ashford etc.

As a resident whose nearest station is Streatham, and will be disappointed at the loss of the service north of Blackfriars, I echo everything andy_c has said.

The time to fight these proposals was several years ago when they were just that. Not after several billions of pounds of construction has taken place based on them.

Is it really Liberal Democrat policy that £6bn of public investment should be written-off, along with associated benefits it brings to hundreds of communities, just so that people from Streatham do not have to change trains? Because they were too ignorant of what was going on in their own community to act at the appropriate time? Certainly I remember reading about the plans in the Streatham Guardian many years ago.

The factual inaccuracies are also astounding. As andy_c points out the increased Thameslink frequency will serve a multitude of destinations but to the north and south of London and not just Brighton. How can such a complaint be taken seriously when it is not several years late but shows a complete lack of cursory research into what is being proposed. And just what is meant by the capacity putting the fast line at risk? The frequency of the Northern line is far greater, would that mean the LibDems would demand a reduction were we to actually get an extension lest it risk the service?

As for calling it the "nearest equivalent of a fast underground service" I can only assume that Cllr Lumsden never actually travels on it. The service is no faster to Blackfriars than that of services from Streatham Hill and Streatham Common into Victoria, no more frequent, much less so in the case of the latter, and is the least used of all three Streatham stations. Going by published figures, 2.2m people pass through Streatham station in a year compared to 2.3m at Streatham Hill and 3.3m at Streatham Common. Only 28% of railway users use Streatham station, and of those some will be using services that terminate at London Bridge or heading south. As great as the opportunities afforded by the current Thameslink service are, its importance is being vastly overstated.

Personally, I am happy to accept the service being curtailed if in return it means we get a more frequent service.

The current proposal following the Thameslink works is for four trains per hour in each direction from London Bridge to Blackfriars via Streatham and the Wimbledon loop. This would provide us with ten trains per hour into central London - four to Blackfriars and six to London Bridge (including the West Croydon line).

Instead of making up lies to fight against a fait accompli, I would much rather see local politicians and leaders fight to ensure that level of service runs all day.

It is not unreasonable to consider a half-hourly frequency from Tooting and other stations on the Wimbledon side of the loop to be deficient for a London metro service. A train every fifteen minutes should be a minimum standard. This would benefit Streatham station by increasing the current half-hourly service to London Bridge to six trains per hour, and would also benefit those in Streatham Vale who nearest station is Mitcham Eastfields by doubling their half-hourly service to Streatham town centre and Blackfriars.