Strains from the trains

05 February 2010

RESIDENTS are suffering a nightmare as trains, fumes and lights blight their lives amid broken promises and snubs.

Homeowners around a Chiltern Railways train line through Wembley Stadium Station are frequently left with no sleep through noisy engines and bright lights from trains parked up behind their houses.

Up to four trains at a time can line up waiting with their engines running despite a depot being just a few hundred metres away in a more secluded area.

Cllr Peter Corcoran, Tokyngton ward, said: "Before the last election we got all kinds of promises about ensuring that things would be done to limit the impact of trains running along the line.

"We all thought it sounded fair enough and were content with it. It now appears however that nothing has been done really and it has been an absolute nightmare.

"All night you can hear diesel trains and have industrial lights shining. Sometimes there are three of four trains lined up with their engines on."

Requests have been made to the rail company to get their drivers to turn off engines as they line up outside the depot at night but as yet nothing has been done.

Complaints have also been made about black fumes wafting over garden fences and the situation was made worse by a snub from the train company over a recent residents meeting.

A representative was asked to attend the Wembley consultative forum on Tuesday January 26 to discuss the problems but no-one turned up.

Cllr Muhammed Butt, Tokyngton ward, said: "There was a pollution report done a year or so back which highlighted some major problems yet nothing has come out of that.

"It is despicable that residents have had to put up with this for so long. It is damaging to health and utterly unacceptable. I am currently working with Dawn Butler to get a result from Chiltern Railways on this."

A spokesman at Chiltern Railways said: "We are very sorry that we were unable to make the meeting, please be assured that we do take these comments very seriously. We are currently arranging to meet local councillors to better understand residents concerns.

"We also deal regularly with the environmental health officers from various councils on our route and are constantly trying to develop ways of improving our environmental impact, including noise related issues.

"Our engineering department hold registration to ISO 14001:2004, this is a special environmental management standard. To hold this we have to show our environmental compliance at our sites and these are monitored and assessed by independent external auditors on a regular basis.

"We take our environmental responsibilities seriously and work in conjunction with environmental health officers in all areas of operation to ensure that any concerns raised by local residents are dealt with as soon as they possibly can be. If there are any concerns then please contact your local environmental health officer who can be contacting on 020 8 937 5252 and they will assist with any complaints.