Labour’s Steve Reed and Sarah Jones. Photo: Zone4Croydon

Croydon Labour Party has launched a campaign to include central Croydon’s stations in zone four.

Labour’s candidate for Croydon Central, Sarah Jones, and Croydon North MP Steve Reed were handing out leaflets at East Croydon station on Monday morning.

According to the campaigners the zone switch would make economical sense, cutting fares for Croydon commuters, and geographical sense, because Croydon’s is closer to central London than other zone four stations.

Steve Reed said: “We decided to take action after people kept mentioning how expensive the transport is.”

Changing West Croydon and East Croydon to zone four would allow commuters to save up £336 per year on an annual travel card.

A year long travel card for zones one to five cost £2,136, while the price to zone four is £1,800.

East Croydon and West Croydon are around ten miles away from Charing Cross, Central London. However stations such as Norwood Junction, Hackbridge and Selhurst are between 10 and 11 miles away from Charing Cross, but are still in fare zone four.

Sarah Jones said: “ There has been so much development around London. North London and East London have been successful. Stratford will move from zone 3 to 2 in 2016. We would like to see positive developments also for South London, where Croydon is the centre. We have 10.000 homes being built, businesses growing, we have Tech City. There is potential.”

Reed added: “We will have more events coming up, more leafleting and more politicians getting involved. In the meantime anyone who is interested can register on the campaign’s website.”

The campaigners have launched an online petition. Around 500 people have already signed so far.

Zone4croydon are also looking for interested volunteers. Councillor Gregory Patrick Udeh signed up to help yesterday.

The candidates will be meeting with Transport for London in November and with Boris Johnson in December.

For more information, to sign the petition or join as a volunteer, take a look at their website by clicking here.