Peter Lamb MP presses Government for greater capacity on Crawley’s railways

Peter Lamb, Labour MP for Crawley, and Natasha Irons, MP for Croydon East, have jointly called on the Government to provide a renewed commitment to rail works necessary to prevent the town’s main rail link to London from running out of space by 2030.

Speaking in a Westminster Hall debate, Crawley’s MP highlighted the critical importance of the ‘Croydon Area Remodelling Scheme’, or CARS, for passengers and businesses across the wider region, including those travelling from Crawley into the capital on a daily basis.

The CARS scheme is designed to address the bottleneck at East Croydon, one of the busiest and most congested parts of the UK rail network, by enabling a greater through-put of trains, unlocking additional capacity and improving reliability on key routes serving millions of passengers each year.

During his contribution, he stressed the wider economic importance of the project, noting that the Government had recently decided to enable a doubling of passenger numbers at Gatwick Airport, despite severe limits on rail capacity.

In response, Simon Lightwood MP, Minister for Transport, highlighted that the decision not to proceed with the scheme had been taken under the Conservative Government and that ministers looked forward to continuing to discuss the works with MPs, heading into the next spending review.

Peter Lamb, Labour MP for Crawley said:

“Like most Crawley commuters, I constantly experience delays and over-packed trains on my commute to and from London. The CARS works are required to provide the capacity we need to deal with existing growth projections, even before Gatwick received permission to expand. “I am using every possible opportunity to press this point with decision-makers, working alongside like-minded MPs, businesses, and the rail industry to make the case for the investment.”