TRANSPORT unions have warned that Britain’s railways are “falling apart at the seams” after it was announced the government has scrapped competitive bidding on services in south-east England.

The Department for Transport (DfT) confirmed today that the competition to run trains between London, Kent and parts of Sussex has been cancelled.

The contract, which has been held by Southeastern since 2006, was due to expire in November.

However the DfT has said that this has now been extended until April 1 2020, on the grounds that competition would not deliver enough benefits for the public.

A DfT spokesman said: “We have taken the decision to cancel the Southeastern franchise competition.

“This follows significant concerns that continuing the competition process would lead to additional costs incurred to the taxpayer, with no certainty that this would deliver envisaged benefits for passengers in a timely fashion.”

The spokesman added that the government will use the five-month extension to help deliver recommendations from the Williams review, a formal investigation into how to improve Britain’s railways that is due to be published in autumn.

It is the first major decision from new Transport Secretary Grant Shapps, who replaced the much-derided Chris Grayling at the end of July.

RMT general secretary Mick Cash said: “The cancellation of the competition for the Southeastern franchise shows yet again that the whole privatised rail system is broken and coming apart at the seams.

“The chaos of short-term extensions to get the government off the hook is a measure of just how rotten their rail policies are.

“You cannot run a serious and reliable rail service on the hoof.

“Yet that is what the government are doing, and passengers paying a small fortune to travel on the Southeastern services will be rightly outraged.”

Mr Cash also took aim at the review, which is being led by former British Airways boss Keith Williams, who has already stated that the report will rule out the suggestion that the government take back the railways into public hands.

He said: “The only viable alternative to this nonsense is public ownership and that is exactly the model that the Williams review has explicitly ruled out.”

TSSA general secretary Manuel Cortes said that the decision to scrap the competition is a “vote of no confidence” in the franchising system.

He added: “Today it is clear that the whole idea of franchising has effectively been scrapped because the government is now simply awarding contracts directly to privateers.

“The DfT has said the Southeastern decision will be used to ‘develop a solution.’ I sincerely hope that Keith Williams, who is carrying out a rail review, is taking note — the only solution which will fix the franchising madness is public ownership.”

Labour shadow rail minister Rachael Maskell said: “It’s clear that the government does not believe franchising competition can deliver benefits for passengers — but they have no ideas for how to deliver better services.

“The Conservatives have no plan for the sorting out the rail network.

“Passengers in the south-east and across the country deserve better, and only Labour’s plan to bring the rail system into public ownership will deliver a reliable and integrated system.”