Peter Carroll Supports New Rail Commuter Forum

9.32.42am GMT Tue 16th Feb 2010

Peter Carroll is supporting a new initiative to help fight for better commuter services into London. Peter has given his backing to the newly launched on line forum

http://www.southeasternrailway-forum.co.uk .

The forum has been set up by Maidstone based commuter Gary Williams. Peter said, 'In a recent leaflet I featured the loss of commuter services from Maidstone East to the City. Gary contacted me and explained that there were so many other problems afflicting commuters. I was appalled by the extent of the commuting problems that he has encountered. He and his wife spend over £7,000 a year just to get to their work in London. It is completely unacceptable that they have to spend such an enormous sum of money for a poor service. It seems to me that service levels could be dramatically improved by better training of staff and by more openness on the part of Southeastern when they have a problem'.

Gary Williams said, 'I am determined to highlight some of the serious failures that are making the lives of commuters a misery. I have personally experienced:

Unhelpful and discourteous staff

Trains persistently late

Poor connection planning

The company declaring that a service has run when in reality in only ran on a part of its planned journey.

Peter Carroll said, 'The forum will be a focus point for people to set out their experiences - good and bad. Southeastern have a privileged position. There is no competition. The forum will show the extent that other people may have suffered similar problems to those experienced by Mr Williams. We hope that Southeastern will listen to the feedback that we gather on the site'