As MPs both representing constituencies with thousands of commuters, we know only too well just how poor the service on Southern and the Brighton Main Line has been over the past 18 months.

Passengers have been paying thousands of pounds a year for the privilege of being late for work most mornings or missing their child’s bedtime because their train home was delayed.

In response, we set up our APPG to bring MPs across the region together to send a clear message to Southern, Network Rail and the DfT that they are failing our constituents and must up their game – and fast.

Since our group was formed in July, we’ve already held sessions with the rail minister, Paul Maynard MP, and senior DfT officials, with meetings scheduled with Network Rail early next month.

Making progress

There has been some encouraging progress since Paul Maynard was appointed in July. This has included the extension of the Consumer Rights Act 2015 to the rail sector – a year earlier than previously planned. He also reduced the time limits for Delay Repay claims on Southern from 30 minutes to 15 minutes, both of which came as a result of some excellent campaigning from Which?

The new independent review board, which has £20m to spend on infrastructure improvements and is chaired by experienced rail industry figure, Chris Gibb, is also welcome. Chris met our group and showed he had grasped the scale of a problem in a way that previous ministers and officials had failed to do. He’s been right across the network, leaving no stone unturned in his bid to improve the service for passengers.

In December, the review board will report on its findings, but a number of improvements have already been put in place, including dramatically reducing the number of older rolling stock used in the peak periods, trains that had been unpopular with passengers and prone to delays.

What next?

There now needs to be an urgent resolution to the dispute between Southern and the RMT, based on the principle of putting passengers first.

There are also many deep-seated problems on the Brighton Main Line, and we recognise there isn’t one easy solution to make everything better.

But the key players involved can be doing more, and our group is here to make sure that they are doing everything in their power to improve the service for long-suffering passengers right across the South East.

| First published in Which? magazine website