Off-track: London Mayor Sadiq Khan does not appear to be clued up about TfL’s trams
Sadiq Khan, after eight years as Mayor of London, has admitted that he was unaware of the issue of ageing and increasingly unreliable rolling stock on the Croydon trams network, after London Assembly Members highlighted recent “abysmal” service and a shortage of trams which had led to an “utterly unacceptable” lack of reliability for south London commuters.
According to Mayor Khan, who has overall responsibility for Transport for London, he had to have the crisis on the tram network brought to his attention by Croydon MP Sarah Jones.
As Inside Croydon was first to report, there had been no service available on some part of the tram network for 10 weeks of the first 21 weeks of 2024. At one point earlier this month, two-thirds of the network’s fleet of trams were unavailable for service.
After weeks of engineering works on the tracks, trams were being taken out of service because of wheels damaged by debris on the tracks in Croydon town centre. TfL ruled out deliberate vandalism as the cause of the damage.
“My understanding, when I looked into this, was the company that runs the trams took these trams out of service to repair the wheels, which were damaged by the debris,” the Labour Mayor of London said – though it turns out that this is not an accurate account of events. The decision to take the damaged trams out of service was TfL’s, and not that of Tram Operations Limited.
Out of service: Croydon’s oldest Bombardier trams are becoming increasingly unreliable
“The good news is those trams are now back in circulation and when I checked… my understanding was a good service was running in Croydon,” Mayor Khan said.
“I’ll be meeting again with Sarah Jones to discuss these issues, because it’s not good enough for the residents there. The tram is often, for many families, the only decent public transport they have.
“Many have had to wait a long time to get a decent tram.”
TfL was working to ensure there is “proper maintenance, to make sure trams aren’t taken out of service”, Mayor Khan said.
The majority of the trams date from 2000, when the network was opened, and are in need of replacement – a big-ticket issue for cash-strapped TfL.
Yet Mayor Khan did not appear to be aware of this. “I’m not sure about the rolling stock issue,” he said, “but I’m happy to look into that.”
The Mayor added, “We’re speaking to the company that runs the trams to make sure these sorts of issues don’t happen again.” It is the third year in which there has been service interruptions due to extensive “essential” engineering works on the tracks, and at least the second year when wheel damage has seen a large section of the tram fleet rendered ununsable.
Hina Bokhari, a LibDem Assembly Member, has written to Mayor Khan’s TfL commissioner, Andy Lord, describing the tram system as “a service in crisis that is failing passengers”.
Bokhari has demanded that directors and senior staff responsible for running the trams should not receive performance-related bonuses this year.
“Since the beginning of 2024 we have seen passengers on the New Addington and Elmers End branches effectively cut off with repeated line closures at extremely short notice,” Bokhari wrote.
Bokhari asked in her letter for an “increase transparency” over delays in replacing the old rolling stock – the sort of thing politicians write or say when they don’t have a clue what’s happening.
Trish Ashton, TfL’s director of rail and sponsored services, said: “We apologise to customers in south London affected by the issues that we have experienced with the London Trams network.
“We know that a reliable tram network is vital to those living and working in south London and we continue to work hard to provide that service.
“Customers have been impacted by shortages due to wheel damage but safety is our No1 priority and the decision to remove the damaged trams from service was absolutely necessary to preserve customer safety.
“We have worked hard to restore a good service on the London Trams network as quickly as possible and are now serving all destinations.
“We have started the procurement process to replace the existing tram fleet, but the replacement is subject to securing suitable capital funding. We continue to work with government to secure funding for this and for a number of other important projects.”
A three-day engineers’ strike by Unite union members broke into focus the essential work that they perform to keep the tram fleet operational. The strike was called because tram engineers are paid £10,000 per year less than their colleagues doing similar work on the Tube network.
A further strike is planned for July 11 to July 15.
From May 2024: Two-thirds of tram fleet out of service due to wheel damage
From June 2023: 20% of Croydon’s tram fleet suffered damage to their wheels
Our panel discusses the problems with the trams’ rolling stock, and the particular issues that this creates for New Addington in our latest Croydon Insider podcast. Click here to listen in to our regular monthly look behind the news headlines
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If something like this had occurred when Ken Livingstone was Mayor of London he’d have been on top of the problem from the start.
It’s not often you can report the absence of something, but here goes…
Sadiq Khan likes a photo op, and he likes to stress his background with the old London Transport. It’s a rarely mentioned fact that his father was a bus driver, apparently…
Yet I cannot recall, from the past eight years, the last time I saw a concocted story about the Mayor of London, or candidate for the Mayor of London, taking a ride on a Croydon tram.
Perhaps Mayor Khan can get a tram with Inside Croydon to New Addington for one of our Under The Flyover podcast interviews?
So TfL say they have started the process for getting replacement trams, but Mayor Kahn says he did not know about the problems of Croydon’s trams. Don’t they speak to each other? Does TfL have the authority to procure new trams without the Mayor knowing? A curious state of affairs!
It does appear to be an astonishing admission of ignorance, especially as a £50m tender document has already gone out
just goes to show how out of touch with real life the man is …..