In the last few weeks the Forest Hill Society and the Sydenham Society have been getting indications that evening peak services will be cut from May next year. This follows the plans to start off-peak evening services from London Bridge rather than Charing Cross.

In May 2010 there will be only 4 trains per hour from London Bridge in the evening peak rather than the existing 6 trains per hour. This is not limited to the evening peak, there will be cuts through the whole day to our services other than at the morning peak, but it is the evening peak that will be worst effected.

At present we expect East London Line services to start running a month after this 30% reduction in services, and Southern seem to believe that this will be good enough. They say that they do not have enough carriages to run these services as they will need to go fast to Norwood Junction and on to Sutton, but they might consider getting some more carriages by December 2010.

Having been awarded their franchise just a few months ago, we now find out what Southern really have in mind - no more late evening services from Charing Cross, and a reduction in all evening peak services. Passengers have once again lost out by the renewal of Southern's franchise and the virtual monopoly they have on all train services in South and South East England.

Rather than cutting our services by 30% from May 2010, they should keep these trains stopping at Forest Hill and other stations on the line until they get enough carriages to cater for their commitment. At least stop additional trains at New Cross Gate so that passengers can change to the ELL rather than having to go via Canada Water on the underground system.