Night services to be restored on Friday and Saturday nights between Highbury & Islington and New Cross Gate

Night services to be restored on Friday and Saturday nights between Highbury & Islington and New Cross Gate from 17 December.Return of Night Overground will closely follow reinstatement of Victoria and Central line Night Tube services, which return on 27 November.Return will provide even more safe travel options for Londoners travelling at nightTransport for London (TfL) has today (Wednesday 3 November) announced that Night Overground services will be returning next month in time for London’s festive celebrations. The all-night services, which link key areas in the city’s night-time economy such as Shoreditch, Hoxton and Upper Street in Islington, have been suspended since March 2020 due to the impact of the pandemic.Night Overground services between Highbury & Islington and New Cross Gate will run every 15 minutes throughout the night on Fridays and Saturdays from Friday 17 December, making it faster, easier and safer for thousands of Londoners to get around.Restoring this service means customers can once again easily access these diverse and buzzing areas of London, rich with restaurants, bars and nightspots, especially important as the night-time economy continues to recover following the pandemic. Reintroducing these 24-hour services at weekends will also help the 1.6 million people who work at night in London and will provide another safe transport option for all Londoners. TfL continues to run as many services as possible whilst seeking to secure the long-term, sustainable Government funding needed to continue supporting London’s recovery.

These services will complement the returning Night Tube, providing a convenient interchange with the Victoria line at Highbury & Islington. This, along with easy access to Night Tube on the Central line, via a walk between Shoreditch High Street and Liverpool Street stations, will open up large parts of London and the city centre for all-night rail travel.

As London has begun to emerge from the pandemic, off-peak leisure travel has been recovering more quickly than other types of journeys, indicating that there is strong demand for services that run later into the night at the weekend. Ridership on London Overground is around 71 per cent, with weekends reaching even higher. The Tube network on weekdays now regularly sees more than 60 per cent of journeys compared to before the pandemic, but this has reached as high as 80 per cent at weekends, while ridership on buses is regularly at 75 per cent of pre-pandemic levels. Overall TfL figures indicate that use of London’s public transport network is at around 70 per cent of pre-pandemic levels and that millions of Londoners are returning to the transport network, showing they have confidence that it is safe, clean and reliable.

The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, said: “I am delighted we have managed to ensure that the Night Overground will be returning next month, linking up diverse and vibrant areas of London with all the nightlife they have to offer, just in time for the festive period. Coming only a few weeks after the return of the Victoria and Central Night Tube lines, this is another important milestone as London’s vibrant night-time economy continues its recovery from the pandemic. I am determined to make the capital as safe as possible for all Londoners, especially women and girls, and the return of the Night Overground will make a huge difference to those who are travelling home late at night, offering another quick, easy and safe way for people to travel around the city.”