Southeastern Railway has confirmed a full timetable will be restored because fewer staff are absent with Covid.

Services will return to how they were in December by Monday, January 31, with additional trains reinstated today due to an increase in staff availability.

From today, a small number of extra trains will be running across the county, with the remainder of services restored by the end of the month.

Southeastern has been running a reduced timetable since Monday, January 10, in response to an increasing number of Covid-related staff absences and government guidance to work from home where possible.

The change enabled it to operate a more reliable train service and prevent as many short notice cancellations as possible.

David Wornham, passenger services director for Southeastern, said: "Like many businesses we’ve been affected by an increased number of staff absences due to Covid over the past few weeks, and we’re pleased to see this situation is now improving.

“We want to thank our passengers for bearing with us while we ran a reduced service.

"From Monday we’ll start running more services where staffing allows, and we’re on track to restore the remainder by the end of January."

In the meantime, Southeastern is asking passengers to check their journey online using journey planners or the timetables on the website, which have been fully updated.

Mr Wornham added: "Our teams are working hard to make sure you can travel with confidence and we have a number of tools to help.

"To check how busy your train might be use our SeatFinder tools, contact us on WhatsApp or follow us on Twitter for the very latest travel information.

"If you have any questions you can find many answers here."