Thank you for sharing your thoughts about the Pride Pillar at London Bridge, a temporary installation to mark the start of LGBT+ History Month this February.
We are a diverse and inclusive organisation and the Pride Pillar was designed by our station colleagues as a creative and colourful way to show that everyone who works in and uses the station is welcome. Being more representative of the communities we serve is a priority for us, and we never intended for anyone to feel excluded by this display. Women and those of other genders and identities are welcome at all our stations and were involved in planning the Pride Pillar design.
There’s no doubt the display has generated a lot of discussion. We’ve carefully considered the feedback we’ve received over the last week, as well as taking on board the views of our colleagues. Having done so, and as we said when we launched the Pillar, it will remain in place at the station for the duration of February and will be removed as planned at the end of the month.
We acknowledge that this decision may cause some further upset. However, it’s in that spirt of recognising differing viewpoints that we’ve chosen to keep the artwork in place and reaffirm our commitment to diversity and inclusion, and we will, of course, reflect on all the feedback we’ve received when planning future initiatives in stations. We’ve also heard some very serious language misattributing various meanings to some of the community flags displayed, which we don’t consider justified.
We’re committed to becoming more diverse, inclusive and genuinely progressive. In Southern region, we're proud of our workforce who work tirelessly to run a safe and reliable railway for everyone, whatever their background – and doing so will remain our top priority. Indeed, we have ongoing recruitment campaigns to address gender inequality in frontline roles (like female signallers) and active employee networks to support colleagues from diverse backgrounds.
Once again, thank you for taking the time to contact us. So that we can continue providing timely responses to all our customers, this reply sets out our final position, and we won’t engage further on this subject.
Yours sincerely,
Community relations – Southern region