Here’s an update from today’s Mayor’s Question Time.

Boris Johnson publically agreed to meet a delegation from the SLL campaign at City Hall, and then join the delagation in a meeting with the Department for Transport, should Lord Adonis agree to meet them. Quote: “I will receive a delegation, and lead it. We will muster in City Hall and then we will go together”.

He also ‘agreed in principle’ to the retention of the South London Line service. He ‘would not want to see any reduction for financial reasons’. He was under the impression that due to works at London Bridge the service would be unable to continue for logistical reasons. This is despite Network Rail telling us the other week that it was possible to keep the service, but that they deemed the ELLx2 as more important. It seems as though Boris had been briefed by Network Rail it was not possible (indeed, Boris said it was news to him that it was in fact). He then seemed to imply after further questioning that maybe it was a funding issue after all (reading from briefing notes), and appeared thrown by the facts.

It’s great that he’s agreed to meet a deputation as now the facts can be made clear to him. Once he knows the facts, it’s crucial that as many people attend People’s Question Time in Brixton as possible so he knows the strength of feeling in South London over this issue. If we can convince him of the logic and get him to argue in our favour, then a meeting with Lord Adonis could be the turning point for the campaign.

Good stuff.