KentOnline

bannermobile

News

Sport

Business

What's On

Advertise

Contact

Other KM sites

CORONAVIRUS WATCH KMTV LIVE SIGN UP TO OUR NEWSLETTERS LISTEN TO OUR PODCASTS LISTEN TO KMFM
SUBSCRIBE AND SAVE
News

Southeastern petition to remove rail franchise reaches 12,000 signatures

By: Bess Browning

Published: 16:00, 19 January 2016

An MP will be taking a petition to remove the rail franchise from Southeastern to parliament tomorrow.

More than 12,000 signatures have been added to the petition to scrap the service and Faversham and Mid Kent MP Helen Whately will be speaking to rail minister Claire Perry tomorrow.

The petition was launched earlier this month which says that the company "consistently let down their paying customers, cancelling trains strategically so they don't have to pay refunds, while making £12.8m in profit".

Helen Whately with Southeastern trains CEO David Statham at Faversham train station.

It continues: "Their customer service is beyond useless and the people of the South East have suffered for long enough."

Mrs Whately said: “I’m not surprised this petition has attracted so many signatures.

mpu1

"Most days I get an email or a tweet – or several of both – from people tearing their hair out with frustration at Southeastern.

"One constituent told me that his train arrived late 25 times in a row. I know everyone was staggered by Southeastern’s latest reason for delay: bright sunshine.

“Delays have real consequences for peoples’ lives, whether it’s being late for work, missing appointments or getting home too late to put children to bed.

Train services are disrupted. Stock picture

"So since I was elected in May I’ve been campaigning for more reliable, more frequent and better value train services.

"I have had two meetings with David Statham, the managing director of Southeastern, and put all of these concerns to him.

"The fact that the petition has passed 10,000 signatures means the government has to respond and I’ll make sure it does - starting by raising this when I meet the rail minister tomorrow.”

To sign the petition, CLICK HERE.

More by this author

sticky

© KM Group - 2024