Sadiq Khan to re-nationalise the Woolwich Ferry after LBC raised issues over poor service

10 February 2020, 07:34

Sadiq Khan is re-nationalising the Woolwich ferry after an LBC investigation found there had been a month’s worth of delays on the service in the first half of last year.

The problems came after nearly £20million had been spent on two new ‘faulty’ ferries.

When confronted with the story last year, the Mayor apologised on LBC, saying the ferries had not been good enough.

TfL say the plans “mean passengers will benefit from an increased focus on reliability and customer service.”

The Mayor of London told LBC: "One of the things that's causing concern - and LBC brought this to the attention of other Londoners - is the awful service that residents in the South-East of London have been experiencing with the Woolwich Ferry.

"There has been an unreasonable amount of closures caused by technical difficulties, but also by industrial action.

"So I've decided that we're going to bring back this service in-house and TfL will be running this later this year."

Jonathan Fox, Director of Rail & Sponsored Services said: “Taking the operation of the Woolwich Ferry in-house will increase the focus on its performance, ultimately delivering an improved experience for our customers.

"We would like to thank Briggs Marine for running this operation over the years, and particularly for supporting us through the upcoming transition period.”

The transition to an in-house operation is expected to complete by the end of the year. TfL added that it will not cost any more to take the contract back.