Wandsworth Conservatives

I have spent some hours over the past two weeks visiting Underground stations and senior managers involved in the operations of the main services, the Northern and the District Lines, operating in Merton and Wandsworth, . Regularly, apart from my own experiences travelling on these lines, I hear from commuters that they have to endure crowded rush hour trains, long queues, and delays travelling to and from work. One of my priorities at the London Assembly and in Transport for London will be fairness and value for money for our commuters and more comfort and safety.

One of my visits was to the Tube Lines control centre of the engineering work on the Northern Line which runs north from Morden through stations up to Clapham South in the constituency. I emphasised to managers that vital station and escalator upgrades must be on time - and if possible happening before the due dates. Some stations like Morden have been improved, new escalators have been installed in Tooting, with Clapham South coming along shortly, but my demand to managers is that commuters must get much better service. The projections by Transport for London a few years ago were poor and barely took account of the massive growth in travellers, and these projections have been massively overtaken. I shall be watching the Northern Line management and improvements closely in coming months and years, and one key factor will be modern signalling to speed up trains and increase their numbers.

My other visit was to Earls’ Court and Fulham Broadway stations on the District Line on Wednesday evening when a Chelsea football match was being played at Stamford Bridge. Evening crowding on the busy Wimbledon-bound platforms at Earl’s Court is a constant problem for commuters, but this gets much worse some midweek evenings with the arrival of thousands of football fans. I, together with my colleague Elizabeth Howlett AM, watched with District Line managers as the delicate task went on, shepherding the hordes on and off trains. The platforms were very crowded as the build up progressed and it is vital that this is skilfully managed. Once again, I can see that the campaign must be for more capacity on trains, extra length, and modern signalling to allow more frequent trains to run. I shall be monitoring progress.

I am determined to work with the campaigns of my Parliamentary colleagues Justine Greening in Putney and Stephen Hammond in Wimbledon to improve the daily travelling experience of constituents.     

I went with Stephen Hammond, MP for Wimbledon and Conservative Frontbench spokesman on Transport, to meet Mike Brown, Chief Operating Officer for London Underground and some of his staff. We are energetically pursuing the long Conservative campaign to improve the Northern Line service running from Morden up through Tooting Broadway, Tooting Bec, Balham and Clapham South, and the District Line service from Wimbledon through Southfields, East Putney and Putney Bridge, fought for by Justine Greening MP. Both of us want the earliest possible upgrade of signalling on the Northern Line to improve the current regularity of trains and the speed of the service. Our aim is to ensure completed improvements by 2011, as previously promised, but we are asking for earlier completion. As Tooting Parliamentary spokesman Mark Clarke and Cllr Alex Jacob have campaigned locally for such a long time, we believe commuters should not have to endure long waits for trains and then difficult journeys to work. Mayor Livingstone and his Transport for London people are not doing their bit to get us to our work comfortably. Stephen Hammond and I also raised the financial problems of District Line and Metronet. We are worried that Livingstone has taken such a financial flier on Crossrail with London taxpayers’ money (of course he always will!) that the coffers may run dry before District Line is properly sorted. I feel  another campaign on the long running financial rip offs of Londoners by Livingstone coming on. Mayor Boris would do so much better!

Richard Tracey, London Assembly Candidate for Merton & Wandsworth