Andy Burnham, has written to the Transport Secretary urging her to require Avanti West Coast to increase timetabled services between Manchester and London to at least two per hour by the end of the month – or remove the contract.
In a letter to Anne-Marie Trevelyan MP, the Mayor said that the company’s plans to return to an increased timetable on 11 December would cause too much disruption to passengers and damage to the Greater Manchester economy. As a minimum, he has called for a consistent service of at least two trains per hour between Manchester and London by the end of October as a staging post to a return of three trains by December.
If the company are unable to make this commitment, the Mayor believes the company’s contract should be terminated when it is considered for renewal next week.
It is now more than six weeks since Avanti West Coast reduced services between London and Manchester to just one per hour.
The company promised the move would bring “stability and certainty” for passengers – but an average of 10 per cent of Avanti West Coast services between Manchester and London over the last three weeks were either cancelled or significantly late. Over the same three-week period, over a quarter of services have failed to arrive on time.
The Mayor has also highlighted that urgent action needs to be taken to improve the experience of passengers, with tickets still being released only a few days in advance and seats regularly double-booked.
