London: Croydon mayor and Gatwick join forces to press Chancellor over East Croydon rail bottleneck

Croydon Executive Mayor Jason Perry and London Gatwick Chief Executive Pierre-Hugues Schmit have written jointly to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, urging the Government to tackle the longstanding rail bottleneck around East Croydon. The two men made the call in speeches at the Invest in Croydon conference today, November 12.

Every London–Gatwick train passes through East Croydon

East Croydon is one of the busiest stations in the country, handling more trains each day than all the intercity operators serving Euston, King's Cross and St Pancras combined. The bottleneck sits between East Croydon station and the Selhurst junction to the north, where limited platforms and flat junctions restrict capacity; a delay there quickly spreads across the Brighton Main Line and the Thameslink route. A report by the Good Growth Foundation puts the share of trains at East Croydon that are delayed or cancelled at around 67%, and the Brighton Main Line is expected to reach 100% capacity by 2030.

Upgrade scheme was cancelled in 2025

Network Rail's Croydon Area Remodelling Scheme would have expanded East Croydon from six platforms to eight and rebuilt the track layout to remove conflicting train movements, but it was paused in 2022 for lack of money and formally cancelled in 2025, with a pre-Covid cost estimate of about £2.9 billion. The Good Growth Foundation report proposes reviving the work in stages, starting with the Selhurst Triangle, and estimates it could unlock £5.1 billion in economic value over 20 years. Funding options in the report include a 50p to £1 levy on flights departing Gatwick and capturing the rise in land values along the line. Crawley MP Peter Lamb tabled a Commons Early Day Motion on November 11 calling on Network Rail to advance the work alongside planned renewals so it is ready for a funding decision from 2029.

Airport expansion makes rail capacity more urgent

Gatwick's Northern Runway programme has been approved, with more than £2 billion of private funding, and is expected to support around 14,000 jobs and add £1 billion a year to the regional economy; the airport has committed to 54% of passenger journeys being made by public transport. In their letter, Perry and Schmit argue the expansion's benefits cannot be delivered without remodelling at East Croydon. Prime Minister Andy Burnham told Croydon East MP Natasha Irons at Prime Minister's Questions on September 2 that he would ask his team to contact her to get the scheme back on track, but the October Budget contained no funding announcement for it.

Image: A train at East Croydon station. (Image: Wikimedia Commons)