John Lewis, Lidl and other firms are calling on South Western Railway to reconsider 'drastic' cuts to services.

The rail operator is planning to make permanent reductions to services through St Margarets, Whitton, Hampton, Teddington, Mortlake and East Sheen.

The wide-ranging changes will also hit services in and out of Waterloo from Kingston, Norbiton, New Malden and Worcester Park.

Local MPs, Sarah Olney, Munira Wilson and Lib-Dem leader, Ed Davey, as well as the Lib-Dems on Richmond Borough Council and Labour representatives in Hounslow are challenging the move.

They argue it will drive people onto the roads and disrupt the travel of workers, children and students.

Lidl and John Lewis signed a joint letter opposing the changes along with Unilever, Kingston Council, Kingston University, Kingston Chamber of Commerce, South Thames Colleges Group, Kingston First, and Bentalls Centre.

The letter says: "These services are relied upon by commuters, business, students and consumers alike.

"If these proposals were to go ahead, they would be incredibly damaging to the local areas which is especially concerning at a time when the economy has experienced its biggest ever peacetime shock."

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They added: "This will seriously undermine the ongoing efforts to secure the borough's post-pandemic economic recovery. Attracting business to the area is a key part of this recovery.

"We would welcome the opportunity to meet with [SWR] and discuss in further detail so that [SWR] can fully understand our concerns and the true impact of these proposals."

Last week, the three local MPs wrote to the government to call for urgent talks to block the cuts. The Lib-Dem MPs said the company is blaming a contract it has with the government for the need to make cuts, which were initially driven by the impact of the pandemic and a drop in commuting.

The politicians warn in their letter that the cuts, many in the morning commuting peak, will lead to 'overcrowding on trains, drive up car use and damage the economic recovery in south west London'.

They complain: "Some stations in our constituencies face cuts in services of up to 50%."

Services to Waterloo from St Margarets, North Sheen and Mortlake are being cut from four to two trains per hour, losing the service every 15 minutes and instead becoming half-hourly.

Teddington, Hampton Wick and Strawberry Hill will all lose two trains per hour during the morning peak.

Whitton will lose service on the Hounslow loop off-peak, though it will continue to run to Twickenham. This means that passengers will have to change at Twickenham for trains to Waterloo.

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Whitton will also lose one of its extra peak trains from Aldershot.

They have written to Transport minister, Chris Heaton-Harris, asking for an urgent meeting 'to discuss these far-reaching and damaging proposals, which will have a huge impact on local resident and businesses'.

SWR said: "With customer journeys forecast to return to 76 per cent of pre-pandemic levels, it is appropriate that we right-size our services to match demand, improve reliability for our customers and reduce costs for the taxpayer.

"We welcome the feedback from these organisations on our consultation proposals, which provides useful insight into the communities and employees they represent and the customers we serve.

"We will carefully consider this feedback alongside other responses to the consultation as we develop the December 2022 timetable in more detail."