Croydon Labour has launched a campaign to strip Southern rail of its franchise because they have “failed to prove they are capable” of running the borough’s main commuter service.

Passengers have endured months of delays, cancellations and overcrowding on Southern’s trains, with disruption continuing even after the rail operator shelved 341 services from its daily timetable in a bid to ease problems.

Now, Croydon Labour is calling on Transport Minister Chris Grayling to act “immediately” to improve the service following the launch of the group’s ‘Sack Southern’ campaign at East Croydon station on Monday.

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Council leader Tony Newman said: “The Southern issue, for Croydon specifically, has almost become and economic threat to the borough.

“There are so many people who either work in Croydon or live in Croydon and go and work up in town that have been affected by this.

“There have been so many warnings, second warnings, third warnings given to Southern and if anything it has got worse. Every day the service is chaos.

“Govia Thameslink [Southern’s owner] has tried and failed to prove to the public they are capable of providing the vital train service our town needs. It is time to sack Southern.”

Yesterday the rail union announced a fresh wave of strike dates in its long-running dispute with the company over the future of conductor roles. 

Staff plan to to hold 14 days of industrial action during October, November and December.

RELATED: Rail union RMT announces 14 fresh strike dates in dispute with Southern

Last month the Government announced a £20m cash injection to help GTR “get to grips” with the disruption.

Less than 24-hours later, the company posted a full-year profits of nearly £100m.

The group said the decision of Mr Grayling to pump tax payer’s money into the network was “nothing short of a disgrace”.

On Monday the GTR announced it was planning the “biggest timetable shake-up” in a generation to boost capacity and “completely recast” many new connections in the south of England to London by 2018.

The network has also faced disruption as a result of an ongoing industrial dispute with the RMT union over changes to the role of conductors.

RMT general secretary Mick Cash said: “Passengers don’t want to be consulted on how services may improve in almost two years’ time. They want action now to end the daily chaos.”