There will be no trains to or from Brighton Station next Saturday, 5 August – the first day of Pride – train bosses have confirmed.
Govia Thameslink Railway (GTR) said today it had taken the “difficult decision” because of Aslef’s announcement of an overtime ban for its train driver members.
Although trains will run to Brighton on other days when the overtime ban is in place, extra trains are needed for Pride to ensure the huge crowds get to and from the event safely.
GTR says it considered various options but after discussing these with the council, police and emergency services, it decided running no trains at all was the safest way forward.
GTR’s network operations and performance director Chris Fowler said: “GTR has an extremely long-standing relationship with Pride and we are bitterly disappointed to make this unbelievably difficult decision.
“We know this will be incredibly frustrating and we’re really sorry to everyone who will be impacted, particularly in the LGBTQ+ community.
“After exploring all possible options, and following discussions with the police, emergency services and local council, we simply cannot run a safe service with enough capacity for the extraordinary number of passengers that travel to Brighton for Pride.
“We can’t in good faith bring people into Brighton that cannot get home again, potentially leaving thousands of people stranded – safety must come first.
“We hope by making this decision now it will allow people time to plan other options and we hope to be back supporting Pride with full services for the whole weekend next year.”
Every year, GTR runs a significantly enhanced service for Brighton Pride with additional late-night trains on Saturday evening.
These enhancements are needed to safely transport the huge number of people that travel into Brighton during Pride’s busiest day but also home again after the popular Saturday community parade and Fabuloso fundraiser in Preston Park.
In normal times, these extra services are covered by drivers volunteering for overtime and without the additional late-night services we need, there is a clear risk of stranding tens of thousands of people overnight without accommodation.
On Saturday evening there has previously been a massive demand for return travel over a short period of time, with a capacity shortfall of 20,000 passengers expected in the busiest hours of the evening alone.
Anyone planning to attend Pride on Saturday this year will need to make alternative arrangements. Friday 4 August and Sunday 6 August are unaffected.
There will be no trains in or out of Brighton station on Saturday 5 August and the station will be closed all day. Trains on the Brighton mainline will instead terminate at Three Bridges, ensuring passengers can reach other major stations such as Gatwick Airport.
Stations between Three Bridges and Brighton will not be served all day. Trains will also not run along the southern coastways into Brighton because of the amended timetable due that will be in place.
More widely, across the GTR network, an amended timetable with fewer services will run because of the industrial action. Services will start later and finish earlier in some areas. Services will be busier than usual and queues are likely. Passengers are advised to check their first and last trains carefully, as there will be no alternative travel outside of these services.
What a disgrace
Wow this is hilarious statement ““We hope by making this decision now it will allow people time to plan other options and we hope to be back supporting Pride with full services for the whole weekend next year.” Are they for real? Maybe a month ago, then yes, but literally the weekend before? GTR is absolutely disgusting. This is not the fault of drivers, this is the fault of a train company being unable to deliver a service without overtime. Absolutely shocking!
Plus i suppose the main road on the seafront will be still closed as work stops at 4pm daily on the demolition of the hotel. Its as if the council want to ruin local business. A couple days of working in all daylight hours would open the main road. But instead its just parking for under used demolition gear.
Also this day and age Trains should be automated, but still keep the human touch with conductors and at train stations.
Targeting the public just turns the public against you.
The point of disruption is to be disruptive.
Ah yes, the council, famously in charge of both Aslef and GTR.
Thanks to ASLEF for all the solidarity they are showing the queer community.
Sorry aslef are not to blame if the railway was fully staffed it wouldn’t be an issue but it’s cheaper to rely on overtime
Clearly another move to turn the public against the people who are rightly striking or enforcing an overtime ban to protect their terms and conditions being destroyed. People want to attack workers for protecting their rights and put out information about pay when it is not merely a pay issue. And this is an overtime ban, they are not striking, so although it is an awful outcome people should not be forced to work overtime. Let’s look at who is really the villain in this story, and it’s not the workers or the union.
Don’t worry plenty of parking space….
This is all down to GTR. ASLEF drivers will be working their contractual hours, and say that there are enough drivers to run a full scheduled service to Brighton on August 5th. Of course this will mean scheduling less trains across the rest of the GTR network, in East Anglia for instance, but we’re talking about tens of thousands of people here, the sustainability of Brighton Pride, and also the affects of reduced fundraising on the viability of small front line charities supporting some of the most vulnerable members of our communities.
This feels a bit like someone decided to close the Somerset access roads for Glastonbury weekend.
It’s not just a loss for the LGBTQ+ community, but for the whole city and for so many catering businesses.
It’s a shame that a great event will suffer, but the remaining unions with teeth in this country need to stand up and be heard.
So….everyone will drive. Just as well the Greens took all the parking spaces along the seafront and replaced them with thoroughly underused cycle lanes.
And the Council parking App is so easy to download and works so well! And parking is so cheap!
Visit Brighton…and you won’t come back!
I think it is disgusting and easy to blame the unions. Why should workers have to work overtime. They are paid so little they have to work overtime to survive and management should not rely on it to run a train service
The train drivers are on 65k so it’s decent pay but that shouldn’t mean mandatory overtime is required to run GTRs services. If GTR can’t run the services they’ve been contracted to do with their current staff then they need to hire more people and sadly their profits will take a hit. Boo-hoo.
Precisely.
Govia and many of the other train operating companies have failed for years to recruit new and retain existing drivers let alone additional ones to be able to expand services.
And it takes a year for a driver to be fully qualified and operate on their own. So it takes a lot of advance planning to do that. No good having 20 drivers retire in April but their replacements haven’t been fully trained.
Remember the farce when the new Thameslink timetable fell apart on day one? That was down to them failing to train drivers on the new route patterns because they couldn’t release drivers for training because they needed them to operate the normal service as they didn’t have enough spare drivers in the system.
Absolutely disgusting
Like everyone else has said, this is such a pathetic, disingenuous response from GTR. The date of this event is ALWAYS on 1st Saturday in August. Equally, this overtime ban has been known about for weeks, so why the announcement just a week beforehand?
Aside from the fact that no company should base it core business model on voluntary overtime, this feels like a politically motivated decision.
Throw the LGBTQ community under a bus (obviously not a train!), along with all the charities & businesses who are losing out – then blame the unions for it!
Nobody buys that, it’s an incompetent, greedy, useless corporation, who couldn’t run a bath, backed up by a poisonous, incompetent, desperate, gaslighting conservative government.
Why has this overtime issue been in existence for so long? Because the government wants to make this part of drivers contracts – but they don’t want to pay for it.
And the staff in ticket offices will be next. They’ll close them all down, move the staff over to something else – then after 18 months, they’ll make them all redundant, claiming they have to make ‘efficiencies’
Blimey talk about a lot of hissy-fitting
There are many alternatives to trains – so use them and stop your hissy fitting and chip on the shoulder rantings
I stil think the police should be running strings to catch men trying to find underage children for fun times… but no they might catch another robert clothier and how would that look
I think real reason is Brighton pride Saturday has become far to big for city to handle ,its same as Lewes bonfire night ,they stopped trains and buses from stopping at lewes because of over crowding ,and I think will be same from now on with Brighton Pride .
It should be for local people and friends how it was before, it became a money grabbing event.
It sad that many have already brought tickets or paid for accommodation ,however year in year out its become un manageable .Needs to be scaled down to local event again like it was prior 2010.
If I were the government I would call the army in to take over. This event is too important.
A group of us in an LGBTQ+ charity in the North West had generously been given the opportunity to take part in Pride by a major local (to Brighton) employer who had also arranged hotel accommodation. We now find that we can get as far as Euston but no further so our whole visit has had to be cancelled. As a life long railwayman I am ashamed to be associated with the decision to close Brighton Station. What purpose do the railways now serve ?
certainly not the population of Britain.