Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham has said that both TransPennine Express and Avanti West Coast need to be “put on notice” after a “positive” meeting with Transport Secretary Mark Harper.
Burnham was amongst five metro mayors for along with Liverpool City Region, West Yorkshire, South Yorkshire and North of Tyne who met Mark Harper, the transport secretary, in offices near to Manchester Piccadilly station on Wednesday.
In a joint statement the mayors said:
”The absolute bare minimum of levelling up means being able to get to work and college on time – but Northerners have been robbed of this basic right because of the chaos on our railways. That must end.
This was a positive meeting and we welcome the new Transport Secretary saying he will grip this crisis, which is causing misery for millions and damaging our regional economies.
But the time for warm words is over. We’ve had enough of broken promises – passengers are rightly demanding action now.
We made it clear to Mark Harper that he can and must step in and clean up this mess, which was made worse by his predecessors.
If thousands of trains were being cancelled in London and the South East, we know this would be dealt with as an emergency – and we expect that same level of urgency.
That means putting operators – such as Avanti, Transpennine Express and Northern – on notice to improve. The government mustn’t reward these appalling levels of service by signing-off on contract extensions when they come up for renewal.
We need the Department for Transport to set out a clear timetable for reform, with ambitious targets that would bring service in the North in line with the performance enjoyed in the South.
We have a new timetable coming in on 11 December 2022 so our challenge to the Transport Secretary is clear: he must get the network running properly, deliver the full timetable, and ensure the disastrous scenes we’ve witnessed over the summer and autumn aren’t repeated.
We will hold him to account on that for the nine million people across the North that we serve.
