There will be no trains between London and Brighton on Saturday, causing major disruption for people travelling to the coastal city’s Pride festival.
Talks between Brighton and Hove city council and Govia Thameslink Railway (GTR), which operates Southern rail, collapsed after a compromise was unable to be found.
GTR in its announcement blamed an overtime ban by the drivers’ union Aslef, which will also affect those travelling to the Glorious Goodwood horse racing festival.
Chris Fowler, GTR’s director of network operations, said: “We share in everyone’s deep and heartfelt disappointment that we’ve had to make such a difficult decision, but we simply cannot compromise on keeping people safe.
“Since Aslef announced a nationwide ban on overtime on 17 July – meaning we could not run the enhanced service we always provide for Pride – we have explored many options to find a solution and held discussions with key advisers including the emergency services.
“These options will not provide enough room to safely carry the huge volume of people that will try to travel if any train services are available.”
He said that 20,000 people could be stranded in Brighton on Saturday night if services ran, leading to “severe overcrowding at the station with people getting injured or worse” and “many thousands of people left with nowhere to stay overnight”.
Southern has also cancelled all coastal services, linking Southampton and Portsmouth with Brighton, Eastbourne, Lewes and Hastings on Saturday, while reduced services on other lines are likely to affect events including the rugby at Twickenham and the Boomtown festival in Winchester.
Mick Whelan, the general secretary of Aslef, said: “It is outrageous and utterly ridiculous to try to blame Aslef for problems which are entirely of this train company’s own making.
“The simple fact is that this company does not employ enough drivers to deliver the services it has promised passengers, businesses and the Department for Transport it will run. That’s why it is dependent on drivers working overtime.”
He added: “GTR has known the date of Brighton Pride and about its failure to employ enough drivers to deliver the services it should for a very long time.”
Meanwhile, the Brighton and Hove council leader, Bella Sankey, expressed her “extreme disappointment”, saying the authority had wanted to discuss a compromise solution that would ensure that some trains would run in and out of the city for most of Saturday.
She said: “In spite of our best efforts to work with GTR to find a creative solution, they’ve instead decided to maintain their position of running no trains, effectively cutting off the city. This has knock-on consequences for traffic congestion and risks leaving people stranded.
“In my view, and based on the data provided by Pride organisers, a workable and safe solution could have been found by a company tasked with providing an essential public service to our city. GTR have failed in their most basic function as a train company and they have also mismanaged the process.”
