Commenting on the meeting Sir Nicholas said; “There has been a series of entirely understandable and correct complaints about the train service from East Grinstead, particularly in the last several weeks. These matters were drawn to my attention by local users and I am grateful to Southern Rail’s Managers for coming to meet with me, to listen to the problems and to be very frank in their replies.
“I am satisfied that Southern Railway are very well aware of the problems which centre around personnel and rostering issues, which clearly must be improved. These are, I understand, on the way to being dealt with. They agree that these delays are very unsatisfactory and cause inconvenience and they will put it right. They further made the point that not every problem is within their control i.e. signalling failures etc, but on the issues that they are effectively responsible for they are determined to fix the difficulties.
“My hope is in the next few weeks to see a return to a good service and I shall be keeping a very close eye on the service as will my constituents”.