A council leader has slammed a rail company’s decision to suspend trains on the first day of Pride and said it will leave the city “cut off”.

Bella Sankey’s comments came after talks between Brighton and Hove City Council and Govia Thameslink Railway (GTR) broke down as GTR confirmed its decision not to run any trains in and out of the city on Saturday.

GTR said the “difficult decision” to cancel services was made over concerns about passenger safety due to an overtime ban by train drivers’ union Aslef in an ongoing dispute over pay.

The council convened an emergency meeting with GTR and emergency services partners on Wednesday, August 2 2023 to discuss a compromise solution which would ensure that some trains would run in and out of the city for most of Saturday, August 5.

The council said a further meeting was scheduled for Thursday, August 3 but was called off, when GTR confirmed to the council, Pride and others late on August 2 that they were sticking to their original decision.

With Brighton and Hove’s annual Pride celebrations going ahead this weekend, Cllr Sankey says the decision will effectively leave the city cut off and anger thousands of people.

She said a solution could have been found.

“This is an extremely disappointing decision from GTR that will negatively impact all those wanting to participate in the country’s foremost Pride celebrations,” 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.

“The impact on the public of this failure to provide a service seems to come very far down the list of what is important to GTR.  They must now reflect and ensure this unacceptable situation never happens again.

“Our priority is now to work with our excellent emergency services and all those involved in facilitating Pride to support the event and seek to address the many issues and increased costs GTR’s flawed decision raises.

“Pride will go ahead this weekend and it’ll be as spectacular as ever. We hope those who can attend enjoy celebrating our LGBTQI+ community and have a wonderful weekend in our city.”

Chris Fowler director of network operations at GTR said running services would risk people's safety.

“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," he said.

“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 advisors 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.

“We know now that 20,000 people could be stranded in Brighton on Saturday, August 5 late at night if we run services. This would lead to severe overcrowding at the station with people getting injured or worse, and many thousands of people left with nowhere to stay overnight. We cannot let this happen on our watch.

“We look forward to being back supporting Pride for the full weekend next year, as we have proudly done for many years.”