Chuka Umunna MP

Tessa Jowell, Labour MP for Dulwich & West Norwood, and Chuka Umunna, Labour’s parliamentary candidate for Streatham have secured commitments from First Capital Connect (FCC) to improve services after their meeting with company bosses.

Passengers of Thameslink, operated by FCC, have experienced severe disruption since November including many delays and cancellations, following an industrial dispute over staff pay and technical problems arising from the recent snowfall.

Other passenger complaints have included poor and/or non-existent communication at stations and shortened and overcrowded trains.

This week, Transport Secretary Lord Adonis told FCC that the disruption experienced by passengers is unacceptable, and warned the operator that it could lose its franchise if the situation continues. Ms Jowell and Mr Umunna have been in regular contact with the Transport Secretary on the issue.

Ms Jowell and Mr Umunna met with Neal Lawson, Managing Director of First Capital Connect and Mary Grant, Managing Director of First Group’s rail division, to go through in detail all the complaints they have received about the service and demand changes to ensure an improved service.

Ms Jowell and Mr Umunna secured the following commitments at their meeting with FCC bosses:

• FCC will take steps to improve communication with passengers, both electronically and through assistance offered by station staff.
• FCC will look into setting up a daily email service to inform commuters of any problems or delays before they leave home for work.
• In the meeting, FCC acknowledged that its business model had failed to provide acceptable levels of reliability. They told Ms Jowell and Mr Umunna that they are currently in the process of overhauling their business model so they are less reliant on staff working overtime and are currently recruiting and training more drivers.
• New rolling stock is coming on stream, which will not suffer from the same problems as older units during cold weather and will allow for greater punctuality, FCC said.
• There will be better and more detailed information made available to commuters regarding compensation for the disruption to date.

Ms Jowell and Mr Umunna will keep in daily contact with Transport Secretary Lord Adonis to ensure that FCC keeps to all its promises. If the operator fails to do so, they will press government to take appropriate action.

Ms Jowell said:

“Thousands of people that I represent rely on FCC to get to work regularly and on time. They have been subjected to completely unacceptable unreliability through cancellations, delays and shorter trains – a collapsing service.

“Having met management today we have sought clear assurances that improvements will have an immediate impact for constituents. We will judge this according to performance, reliability, communication and modern trains.”

Mr Umunna said:

“We are in daily contact with Lord Adonis, the Transport Secretary, on this issue, and are keeping a close eye on FCC. We will not let up until a decent service is provided.”