PARLIAMENTARY DEBATE
Croydon Area Remodelling Funding: Brighton Mainline - 31 March 2025 (Commons/Commons Chamber)

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.

I look forward to hearing how Mr Shannon’s intervention relates to the Croydon area remodelling scheme and the Brighton main line.

The most important thing, Madam Deputy Speaker, is to congratulate the hon. Lady on securing the debate. I spoke to her beforehand to try to help her in some small way. Does she agree that years of underspending on public transport have left railway and bus services drowning in repair work, and that if the Government wish to have a thriving public transport service outside London, local authorities must be given the funding to fix services—be they in Croydon or Newtownards—rather than having to shake a begging bowl for pennies, as they do now?

A successful intervention.

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.

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.

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.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon East (Natasha Irons) for securing this debate and allowing us to discuss this critical area of rail infrastructure.

As my hon. Friend has so clearly outlined, the Brighton main line is a crucial artery connecting the south coast to the heart of London, carrying millions of passengers each year. It is a lifeline for commuters, a gateway for visitors and a crucial link for businesses that are driving our economy forward. It also provides a direct rail link into Gatwick, the UK’s second busiest airport. In her constituency, East Croydon station is a major public transport hub, providing links to services across Sussex as well as the London Tramlink. The line facilitates billions of pounds in economic activity every year, enabling businesses to thrive and communities to stay connected. That is reflected in the substantial investment in the line in the recent past. The £7 billion Thameslink programme transformed north-south travel through London, delivering faster, more frequent and more reliable journeys for passengers. Thameslink saw an entirely new, bespoke fleet of class 700 trains introduced to the Brighton main line, radically increasing onboard capacity and improving the reliability of the service. In addition, major stations such as London Blackfriars and London Bridge were entirely rebuilt, and the vital link to the Elizabeth line was created at Farringdon—

Indeed, via the major hub of East Croydon station in my hon. Friend’s constituency, the Thameslink programme also established new direct connections to Peterborough and Cambridge. More than £250 million was recently invested in upgrading Gatwick airport station, delivering a new, more accessible station concourse and doubling the space for passengers.

I am very grateful to the Minister for outlining the investment made in the line historically. Indeed, in Gatwick’s case, a very large portion of the investment was made directly by the airport, rather than by the Department for Transport. This debate is about the fact that in shortly over a decade, the line will be completely at capacity, so any train leaving Brighton will be full by the time it arrives at my constituency of Crawley. Not a single passenger from Gatwick will be able to get on the train to London without these improvements, and we are running out of time to secure the change necessary to avoid that outcome.

Gatwick Airport Ltd has applied for a development consent order to bring its northern runway into routine use alongside its main runway. I understand that it has committed to providing a £10 million rail enhancement fund to support improvements to the network required to accommodate additional passengers and mitigate the impacts on performance.

As I said, more than £250 million was recently invested in upgrading Gatwick airport station, delivering a new, more accessible station concourse, doubling the space for passengers, improving the reliability of trains calling at the station and ensuring that it is a fitting gateway to the UK. For too many years, Gatwick airport station has been a major bottleneck on the Brighton main line due to the extended time that passengers need to board and alight from trains. Since the significant expansion of the station and the widening of platforms, passengers can board and alight much more quickly, reducing knock-on delays further up and down the line.

As part of the Gatwick upgrade, the track layout through the station was remodelled to increase capacity and speed, reducing journey times between Brighton and London by five minutes and improving performance. I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon East and her constituents have started to see the direct benefits of those interventions at Gatwick, be it in the efficiency of their train service or the ease with which they can start their holiday.

Despite those investments, demand and crowding on the line continued to grow up to 2019. It was a victim of its own success, we could say. Before the pandemic, the Croydon area remodelling scheme was rightly identified as a priority scheme to address crowding and provide more capacity on the line. As my hon. Friend has outlined, the complex junction at Selhurst and pinch points at East Croydon and Norwood Junction stations create limits on capacity. CARS was developed to address that through significant remodelling of the tracks and rail junctions north of East Croydon station and as far up as the Norwood Junction station area.

CARS also envisaged a major redevelopment of East Croydon station. At the time, Network Rail estimated that it would take over 10 years to fully deliver the CARS scheme, at a cost of around £2.9 billion. Delivery would also involve significant and ongoing disruption for passengers up and down the Brighton main line. However, the pandemic created significant changes in travel patterns and uncertainty about future demand, while at the same time stretching public finances. In response, the previous Government took the decision to pause the scheme at the 2021 spending review. No development work has been undertaken on CARS since then.

In her spring statement last week, the Chancellor was clear about the challenges facing our public finances and the steps that she is taking to restore stability and support growth. The ongoing spending review is an important part of that process. We are working to carefully assess each element of public spending, including rail investments, ensuring that every penny spent supports our missions and the plan for growth. Given that this process is ongoing, I regret that I am not able to comment on individual projects such as the Croydon area remodelling scheme until the spending review has concluded in June.

My Department and I certainly recognise the substantial benefits that the CARS programme could bring by unlocking development in Croydon and providing capacity for growth across the coast-to-capital region. I also restate the offer made on Thursday by the Secretary of State for Transport to meet my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon East to discuss CARS and the drivers for investment she has outlined so clearly. However, I remind her of the multibillion-pound costs of the scheme, in the context of the significant funding challenges that the Government face across a range of public services and infrastructure investment ambitions. We will continue to work with rail industry partners, local authorities and stakeholders across the region, exploring opportunities to improve rail services in the south-east and to ensure that the Brighton main line remains a world-class transport link—one that meets the needs of its passengers and supports economic growth.

Question put and agreed to.