Mayor of London reiterates call for TfL to take control of Southern franchise

Writing to the Transport Secretary, Sadiq Khan, Mayor of London, has repeated his call for Transport for London (TfL) to take control of GTR Southern franchise.

The Mayor of London has for the second time written to Transport Secretary, Chris Grayling, repeating his offer to put a TfL team in charge of the Govia Thameslink Railway (GTR) Southern franchise following strike action, delays and cancellations in and out of London.

London Mayor believes TfL is best placed to resolve the Southern franchise situation

In the letter, Sadiq Khan welcomes the news that this week’s strike had been suspended, but reiterated the urgency of putting a TfL team temporarily in control of the franchise. Continuing Mr Khan said that in any other walk of life the service offered to paying customers by GTR Southern would not be tolerated, “so enough really is enough.”

The Mayor believes that TfL is best placed to resolve the situation and repeated that TfL would get a grip of this situation as it has expertise in running public transport services that are relied upon day in day out.

The principle of TfL taking on more rail services in the long term has already been accepted by the Department of Transport, as set out in the joint DfT/TfL rail prospectus earlier this year.

The Mayor of London’s letter can be downloaded here.