Croydon Area Remodelling Scheme

Rupa Huq Excerpts

Tuesday 17th March 2026 Westminster Hall

[Dr Rupa Huq (in the Chair)]

Order. I will call Natasha Irons to move the motion and then I will call the Minister to respond. Other Members can make a speech with prior permission from the mover of the motion, which I think on this occasion has already been secured. As this is one of those 30-minute wonders, there is no time for a winding-up speech at the end.

[Natasha Irons (Croydon East) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered Government support for the Croydon Area Remodelling Scheme.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Huq.

As the Minister will know, this is the second time that I have secured a debate on this topic; it is great to be reunited with him today. It is really important to return to the subject, because the Croydon area modelling scheme is not just about driving billions in economic growth across the east and south-east, or capitalising on key infrastructure projects such as the expansion of Gatwick and Luton airports, or the opening of the Universal Studios theme park, but about something far greater. It is about getting a lift at Norwood Junction station.

The Croydon area modelling scheme, or CARS, is a Network Rail plan to add capacity and resilience to the most complex part of Britain’s rail network, and improve services not just on the Brighton main line but on the wider Thameslink growth corridor, which runs from Peterborough to Brighton.

The lack of capacity at East Croydon station and the complex series of junctions north of Croydon—the Selhurst triangle—means that trains across the Brighton main line and the wider Thameslink corridor, including those that run between Gatwick and Luton airports, have been vulnerable to delays and cancellations for many years. Thameslink and the Brighton main line are integral to economic growth in the east and south-east, and the demand for services will only increase.

Around 18% of national passenger journeys take place on the Govia Thameslink Railway network, and south of London it is already the most congested part of the rail network in the country. The Brighton main line is 5% of the southern region network, but delivers about 25% of its revenue, which helps to sustain and subsidise the wider rail system. About 1.7 million people live in areas served by the Brighton main line outside of London and more than 30,000 passengers a day already depend on this corridor.

Across the local authorities served by the Brighton main line, around 34,000 homes are required to be delivered every year, and on the Thameslink line Luton airport wants to nearly double passenger numbers to 32 million by 2043, while Gatwick is seeking to grow from around 40 million passengers today to as many as 80 million in the late 2030s. The new Universal Studios theme park in Bedfordshire, which is due to open in 2031, is expected to attract 8.5 million visitors a year and support 28,000 jobs.

That is a genuine growth and opportunity corridor, and it all flows through the bottleneck at East Croydon. East Croydon station already handles more trains in a day than all the inter-city operators from Euston, St Pancras and King’s Cross. It is a critical pinch point, where limited platforms, constrained tracks and complex junctions restrict the number of trains that can flow through it.

It is because Thameslink is such an interconnected system that delays here do not stay here. A problem at the Croydon bottleneck quickly spreads across the Brighton main line, through the Thameslink core and across the wider network. Around 67% of trains passing through East Croydon are late or cancelled. For the people who rely on that vital route every day, that means missed connections, unreliable journeys and longer commutes.

The issue is made even more pressing because every rail service between London and Gatwick passes through East Croydon. Gatwick’s northern runway expansion is a £2.2 billion project that is expected to support around 14,000 jobs and deliver an estimated boost of £1 billion a year to the economy. However, that could all be held back by poor rail infrastructure.

Gatwick plans include a commitment to have 54% of journeys to the airport made by public transport, so rail is not an optional extra; it is a fundamental element of Gatwick’s success. Without remodelling at East Croydon and in the wider Selhurst triangle, the Brighton main line is expected to reach 100% capacity by 2030. Addressing the bottleneck could unlock around £5.1 billion in economic value over the next 20 years, and provide the resilience and growth that this corridor needs to succeed.