Caroline Pidgeon

The River Thames is a forgotten highway, a tube line effectively, across the centre of London and yet under-resourced in terms of transport.

In January, the London Assembly Transport Committee is looking into river transport services - so Caroline and other Committee members spent a chilly morning in early December out and about on the river with Thames Clippers from Putney to Erith, looking at the challenges and opportunities to really expand river transport services for Londoners.

After years of disruption on the Jubilee Line new evidence has come to light revealing some of the real costs of the years of dragged out weekend closures.

Following extensive freedom of information requests Caroline Pidgeon, Leader of the Liberal Democrat London Assembly Group, has now discovered that the costs of the weekend closures since April 2007 on the Jubilee Line include:

• 32 million passengers being affected by the weekend closures, leading to a loss in ticket revenue of a staggering £15.7 million
• Transport for London having to spend £13 million on replacement buses

Commenting on these immense figures Caroline Pidgeon said:

“A year ago the Mayor and Transport for London admitted that the upgrade programme on the Jubilee Line would slip once again. After years of disruption to passengers, communities and businesses they announced a further year of weekend closures which has only just finished.

The London Assembly’s Transport Committee, led by Caroline Pidgeon has written to Southeastern trains seeking an explanation for the severe delays yesterday evening, and how passengers – some of whom left the train and walked along the tracks to escape the sweltering conditions – will be compensated.

A broken down train in Dartford caused significant delays to Southeastern services during the evening rush hour, and left passengers on one train stuck just outside Bexleyheath for almost two hours on the hottest day of the year.

The full reopening of Greenwich foot tunnel has been delayed once again, with users facing night time closures and no lifts throughout the Summer until September. At the same time work on the Woolwich foot tunnel, which has been completely closed since last year, is not set to be finished until August.

Caroline Pidgeon, leader of the Liberal Democrat London Assembly Group, discovered this information buried away on Greenwich Council’s website. The explanation for the six-month delay to the Greenwich foot tunnel is put down on the website to “additional works and problems with materials used in the repairs.” At present, no information at all has been provided by Greenwich Council about why the works at Woolwich foot tunnel are so far behind schedule.