Rail action groups demand changes as Secretary of State for Transport visits Eastbourne station

Eastbourne station has recently been transformed to include all the new features which will soon become the norm at Southern stations across the network.

This comes on the back of the Department of Transports announcement that Southern's parent company Govia had successfully retained the South Central franchise.

Lord Adonis made an address, welcoming the start of the new Southern franchise, and formally opened the new passenger lounge at the station.

Lord Adonis said:

"I think this is a beautiful station that has been beautifully restored. It has been transformed. This is a microcosm of the sort of improvements we want to address across the whole network. The team behind it can be very proud of the improvements they have bought about: more trains, more seats on trains, a new customer lounge, all of that is very good news."

Attending the event were Go-Ahead's Chief Executive, Keith Ludeman, Southern's Managing Director, Chris Burchell and many of Southern's key stakeholders.

It was a proud day for station manager Simon Cullen and his staff.

Simon said: "We are very honoured and it's nice to show the secretary of State our plans for the new franchise."

Rail action groups decided that the day's celebrations, with so many dignitaries in attendance, was the perfect opportunity to hold a meeting in order to put forward pressing concerns, which included the lack of fast trains, lack of seating and the escalating cost of fares.

Attending the meeting was Lord Adonis, East Coastway Commuter Group/Bexhill Rail Action Group (BRAG) and was hosted by Nigel Waterson, MP for Eastbourne, Alex Foulds, Director of Southern Railway and Cllr Steve Wallis, Eastbourne.

The meeting was opened by Nigel Waterson, who set the scene by explaining that the introduction of the new December 2008 timetable - a result of the Brighton Line Route Utilisation Strategy (RUS) - had disadvantaged a large number of East Coastway commuters.

Belinda Fordham, Chair of the East Coastway Commuter Group concurred, stating that, as a result of the timetable changes she had mobilised over 350 commuters into registering their support for a meeting to be held with GOVIA Southern Railway to discuss their concerns, subsequently setting up a commuter group which is now recognised as officially representing the East Coastway line, working in partnership with Bexhill Rail Action Group (BRAG).

Belinda said: "We are meeting Lord Adonis and Nigel Waterstone, to raise and discuss the issues that commuters on the East Coastway have with the service provided. The East Coastway line runs from London Victoria through Eastbourne, Bexhill and Hastings, terminating at Ore. BRAG and the commuter group are now totally linked up and work together to try and get across the issues that affect all of the commuters in this area."

Ray Chapman of BRAG (representing Hastings, Bexhill and St Leonards) highlighted the need for faster train services along the East Coastway, on the London Charring Cross/Cannon Street to Hastings, St Leonards and Bexhill.

Ray said: "At the moment the situation at Bexhill is that it is sixty nine miles from London by road, but takes one hundred and twenty three minutes by train. This gives the train an average speed of thirty four miles an hour. These trains are operating from Bexhill at a service equal to that prior to 1940."

He added: " It would have been quicker by steam train!"

Despite being limited by the Department of Transport, Alex Foulds said they do value the input from the action groups:

"We have been through a competition and are proud that we are the best organisation to improve the service. There isn't a lot of competition on our lines on a day to day basis. That is the situation for the next five years and ten months.

"By and large our timetable is set by the department of transport, which limits us. But, we are all entering into a process. It's about trying to improve our service record. Part of that is listening to what these groups say."

He added: "We can't do exactly what everyone wants. In the short term the answer is no, but in the long term the work these people are doing is invaluable."

Another positive outcome from the meeting is that Lord Adonis gave due consideration to the points raised and asked Southern to look at how services could be increased to the East Coastway, to ease overcrowding and decrease journey times.

In order to facilitate this in timely manner, it was agreed his private secretary would set up a meeting with all parties concerned within the month to investigate, research and recommend how this could be achieved.

The main issues raised at the meeting included:

* Severe overcrowding with Commuters from London Victoria and London Bridge down the East Coastway standing or even sitting on the floor for over an hour in the evening commuter peak.

* Journey times have been extended -123 minutes from London to Bexhill. This is longer than London Paddington to the Welsh Valley Towns of Cwmbran / Pontypool , and longer than the journey took in the 1950's. This equated to an average speed of 34 miles per hour.

* The over-capacity on the Brighton Line Services, which have 6 trains / 52 Coaches in the peak hours serving Brighton and 4 trains / 16 Coaches per hour to Hove (68 Rail Coaches collectively) serving a population of 206,628. Whereas Eastbourne combined with Lewes and Hastings have only 2 trains each per hour and Bexhill, Newhaven and Seaford 1 train per hour (32 Rail Coaches collectively) serving a collective population of 287,962. This shows that both Brighton and Hove have 125% additional capacity than Hastings, Eastbourne, Bexhill, Newhaven, Lewes and Seaford versus the population and number of seats per train overall.

* The strategy and focus to date appears to be only improving services on the Brighton Main Line services

* Eastbourne is the fastest growing town in the South East with a government target of 4,800 additional homes to be built by 2026.

* Hastings and Bexhill include the most deprived areas in the South East plus they are under-going major regeneration and population growth with Bexhill population expected growth alone is from 48,000 to 68,000.

* Improved Rail services will improve the local economy through tourism and new businesses being attracted to the area coupled with better commuter opportunities to further reduce employment.

* The new South Eastern High Speed Service achieves fast journey times to Ashford of 40 minutes and Folkstone of 54 minutes as well as substantially improved journey times to Canterbury, Dover, Ramsgate and Margate as opposed to the slower services seen on the East Coastway.

* People were reconsidering whether to move into the area due to the unreasonable commute to London - on average around 2hrs.

* All were in agreement that at least one fast train achieving a journey time of around 60 minutes was an immediate requirement.