Croydon Area Remodelling Funding: Brighton Mainline

Natasha Irons Excerpts

Monday 31st March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Natasha Irons (Croydon East) (Lab)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to raise this important issue in the House. At this time on a Monday night, Members may not find the prospect of discussing the Croydon area remodelling scheme, or CARS, the most exciting way to spend their time, but I can assure them that it is. The scheme is not just about providing vital upgrades to two of busiest train stations in the country and bringing much-needed investment into one of London’s most significant areas of opportunity, but about supercharging growth, opportunity and transport links right across the south-east.

CARS is a Network Rail plan to add capacity and ease congestion on the most complex part of Britain’s rail network, and to improve services on one of the country’s most critical rail lines: the Brighton main line. The lack of capacity at East Croydon station and the complex series of junctions north of Croydon—the Selhurst triangle—mean that trains across the Brighton main line, including the Gatwick Express and those across the wider south-east network, have for many years been vulnerable to delays and cancellations.

At the time of developing those plans, Network Rail reported that service punctuality on the Brighton main line was the lowest of any major route, with the bottleneck at Croydon being one of the main causes. The Croydon opportunity area is earmarked for 14,500 new homes and 10,500 new jobs by 2041, there will be extensive housing delivery in the Brighton city region, between Horsham and Crawley, and along the south coast, and Gatwick is forecast to grow by 58% by 2047 even with only one runway, so the pressure on the Brighton main line is set only to increase.

However, the Croydon bottleneck means that there is no practical way of improving journey times, meeting passenger demand and opening up new destinations on the Brighton main line in the future, because the maximum number of trains that can be scheduled through East Croydon is 70 per hour. In 2019, the service was running at maximum capacity; it is now almost back to pre-pandemic levels, with 62 scheduled trains.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

A successful intervention.

[Natasha Irons]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman: sustainable long-term funding is the only way for any area outside London to grow sustainably.

In addition, CARS would see significant improvement to East Croydon station, Britain’s 21st most used station, by adding two new platforms, a larger concourse to improve facilities for passengers and better connections to local transport networks. It also provides an opportunity to modernise Norwood Junction station, Britain’s 117th most used station, by extending the platforms so that more services can stop there and adding a footbridge with a lift to finally bring step-free access to this much-loved local transport hub.

Despite a consultation with stakeholders and passengers showing that 90% of respondents were in favour of CARS, in 2020 the previous Government shelved these crucial infrastructure plans, turning their back on economic growth in Croydon and across the south-east. However, passenger numbers on the Brighton main line continue to recover well post-pandemic, with station entries and exits at East Croydon station now back up to almost 80% when compared to their pre-pandemic levels and back up to 92% at Gatwick Airport station when compared with the same period.

Given the renewed interest in the expansion of Gatwick airport, the need to look again at CARS is more vital than ever. Gatwick is Europe’s busiest single-runway airport and with the Gatwick airport to Victoria route being the seventh busiest flow for rail passengers nationally—second, when we take out the Elizabeth line extension—even without a second runway, demand for train services into Gatwick are already reaching capacity. The economic case for Gatwick expansion, creating an estimated 14,000 new jobs and generating an estimated £1 billion a year for the British economy, has been well documented and the Government have outlined that any expansion would need to see the number of passengers arriving at Gatwick via public transport increase from its current 44% to 54%.

It is not hard to argue that without the urgent improvements that CARS brings to this line, that ambition is difficult to achieve. Further delays in getting CARS off the ground could not only hold back economic growth for the coast-to-capital region—a region estimated to be the seventh largest regional economy in the country—but it could also hold back economic growth for our country.

[Bobby Dean (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

The hon. Lady is making an excellent case for solving the Croydon bottleneck, as it is known. As she has outlined, it affects not only her area of Croydon, but my area of Carshalton and Wallington—the hon. Member and I have seen each other on the train on the way into this place. Does she agree that public transport and train demand in particular can be affected by the frequency and reliability of the services? If we were to fix this problem, that could actually increase the demand for train use in our areas, which would be a good thing not only for the economy, but for the environment.

[Natasha Irons]

I absolutely agree that once people get into the doom loop of thinking that the train is not going to arrive, they find other routes or stick to their cars. If we can improve rail performance in every region across the country, I am sure we will see passenger numbers also go back up to those pre-pandemic levels, and even increase beyond that.

I appreciate that the Government have rightly stated their intention to grow every corner of this country and that good public transport will no longer be confined to the boundaries of our city. I urge the Minister to consider the wider impact that investing in CARS could have for our coastal communities, what it could do for towns and regions outside London, and what it could do for my part of outer south London. With an estimated extra 4,000 seats per hour on the Brighton main line, 15% higher than what would be provided without it, CARS is not just good for Croydon and the whole of the south-east—it is good for our country, too.