Bellenden Residents' Group (BRG)

East London Line’s opening puts Hackney on rail map  London Evening Standard 27 April 2010

MILLIONS of Londoners are able to cross the river by rail from Hackney to New Cross after the reopening today of the revamped East London line. But the South London Line, which runs between Victoria and London Bridge, is under threat from the second phase of the East London Line, which will extend to Clapham Junction by 2012.

Southwark News 22 April 2010 - report by John Prendergast

Politicians have responded quickly to calls to show continued support for the under threat South London Line (SLL) should they get elected.
Campaigners have fought a long campaign to keep the route, which runs on a loop between Victoria and London Bridge, since they learnt that Transport for London (TfL) and the Department of Transport planned to ditch the line last year.

Report from SLP 12 March 2010  read here

THE South London Press is backing campaigners’ calls for Boris Johnson to come to the rescue of rail services this side of the river. Save the South London Line (SLL) members are asking thousands of people to write to the London Mayor urging him to save a proposed replacement for the line that runs from London Bridge to Victoria. Last year, Transport of London (TfL) and the Department for Transport (DfT) decided to scrap the SLL in 2012. A proposed replacement from Bellingham to London Bridge was also ditched and the £24million – or £2.5million per year – due to fund it was diverted to the East London line extension from West Croydon to Dalston Junction via South-east London. Read more and use the SLP web linked email to the Mayor

Read: Southwark News  12 February 2010   Emma Alies

Campaigners battling to save the South London Line have published a report arguing that the line is vital if south London is ever to enjoy a train service which runs at tube-like frequency.
The report claims that scrapping the link would mean that King's College and Maudsley hospitals at Denmark Hill would lose all evening services to Victoria and lose their direct service to London Bridge.

Southwark News 4th February 2010

Another battle which is being fought around the regeneration of the London Bridge Quarter is between Southwark Council and Network Rail.  No final decision had been made regarding platform arrangements at London Bridge, which currently threatens the South London Line.

'Vital transport link proves its worth'  SLP report by Jenny Clover  12th Jan 2010

As many rail services were cancelled and disrupted during the cold weather, rail users reported that the one service that seemed to keep on going was the South London Line. Read the article.

 Article from Nunhead Voice, the Nunhead Community Forum Newsletter Issue 20 Winter 2009 page 4

The campaign to Save the South London Line continues!

We have succeeded in getting the rail industry, Transport for London (TfL) and the Department for Transport (DfT) in particular, to agree we need direct links to Victoria. The details of that are progressing, but we have a way to go to ensure that action is taken. However there is a big battle still to conclude on the links to London Bridge. It is Network Rail and DfT who have the keys to that. We now know that TfL puts a very high value on east-west orbital travel eg between Clapham Junction and Shoreditch (because it is their own over-ground rail service), and a very low value on our direct links to central London rail stations.

But Network Rail and DfT also seem not to care about our links to central London stations because they have fewer numbers and lower revenue than the long distance commuter trains. This rail industry alliance is really how the decision to cut the South London Line happened. This is what we have to get reversed for the sake of a sensible integrated transport strategy for our part (Zone 2) of inner South London.

Good news is that Southwark Council agreed (4th November) a cross party motion that fully and comprehensively supports the campaign. For details, visit www.southwarkrailusers.net and click on campaign information page, and click the link there under Campaign News/Southwark Council.To keep up to date with the campaign join the mailing list  SRUG@southwarkrailusers.net.

South London Press 4th December 2009 by Jenny Clover  photo and read article

Transport campaigners dressed in Edwardian garb celebrated the 100th anniversary of the first London electrified train line this week. The Save the South London Line campaigners met at Denmark Hill station Tuesday morning for a champagne breakfast. It was 1st Decemeber 1909 that the first electric trains carrying passengers ran on the line ...

Southwark News 3rd December 2009; by John Prendergast   read article

Champagne corks were popped for the threatened South London Line on Tuesday; but they were to celebrate its centenary rather than stopping the route from being axed. Campaigners met at 8am at Denmark Hill station to enjoy some drinks and nibbles, to toast the 100th anniversary of the line becoming electrified.

Letter to Modern Railways magazine  (read article)    From:    Graham Feakins

Just who is this man, emboldened with the title of "London Rail Chief Operating Officer" and by name of Howard Smith, who can dismiss in two short sentences the total future of the South London Line (MR Dec. 09) by stating that Network Rail has 'already said' that the London Bridge end will be cut off in 2012, there has been "some controversy" and that the Victoria enhancement will not even