Stokey Talk

When people discuss the defining aspects of Stoke Newington, its lack of proximity to a Tube line is often cited. It’s one of the main reasons, say Stokey’s cheerleaders, why the area has maintained its individual character. There is an iconic mode of public transport associated with N16 – but it’s the No 73 bus.

People who live outside the area – and many who live within it – don’t realise that it’s actually well-served by overground trains from four stations: Stoke Newington, Stamford Hill, Rectory Road and (in E5) Clapton. So it’s worth noting that the latest national train passenger survey by the pressure group Passenger Focus puts our local train operator, National Express East Anglia, close to the bottom of the pile.

Its overal satisfaction rate is 78%, putting it above only the perennially useless First C(r)apital Connect at 75%, the lowest in Britain. Why is this? On paper, the train service appears good: there are six trains an hour to Liverpool Street at peak time through Stamford Hill, Stoke Newington and Rectory Road, with four an hour through Clapton. Trains run early in the morning, late at night, and with an increased Sunday service; you can be in Oxford Circus in half an hour, if you’re lucky. National Express was one of the first London overland rail operators to introduce Oyster pay-as-you go.

The problem, I think, the air of general uselessness that hangs over the service. Trains were refurbished a few years ago, but the refit appears to have been done on the cheap and the carriages once again look distinctly tatty. Punctuality, which had been improving in recent years, has taken a turn for the worse in recent months. And a plan to introduce new trains to the franchise covers only the Stansted Express service. Long-suffering commuters will continue to travel in second-rate trains.

But there is light, if you will permit the pun, at the end of the tunnel. Having been stripped of its East Coast franchise, National Express has been denied the option of extending its East Anglia contract. Terms of the new franchise are currently being drawn up, and we must hope that the new operator, which will take charge on April 1 2011, will make a better fist of it.