Brighton is open and ready to welcome visitors from all over the UK and the world as we celebrate one of the UK’s biggest and best Pride festivals.
Pride continues to remain neutral in the dispute Southern have with the RMT and have today received an unqualified message of support from Mick Cash, General Secretary of the RMT union:
The RMT made the decision not to take industrial action this weekend so that we could fully support Brighton Pride. If Southern are advising the public not to travel by train because they cannot provide a service that meets passengers’ expectations, please know it is due to Southern’s incompetence and poor management and has nothing to do with the RMT. It really is simply wrong for Southern to put people off from attending Brighton Pride by train and blame their staff for an inadequate service.
Previously, Mr Cash wrote:
I am pleased to advise you that as ever RMT will be fully supporting this event and as usual our Brighton and Hove Branch has invited all our members and their families to support Pride.
We think this is a massively important event to show solidarity with our LGBT brothers and sisters.
RMT has been proud to support Pride for a number of years and please accept our best wishes and solidarity for what I am sure will be another wonderful and successful occasion.
After several meetings with Southern, the Sussex Police and other agencies, we continue to have a dialogue to ensure the best possible train service to Brighton.
Chris Hudson, Media Relations Manager at Govia Thameslink Railway said,
We continue to fully support Pride and are making all possible endeavours to deliver the best possible service for Pride visitors.
Once we have more info later in the week, we’ll be able to be more specific.
Obviously Southern are not the only rail operator in to Brighton. Thameslink trains run at least twice hourly from London’s St Pancras and Blackfriars stations, National Express run regular coaches from London Victoria and we understand that Gatwick Express trains are running normally from London Victoria.
As always, we advise all people travelling to check timetables and up to date information on the day using the National Rail or similar websites.