New Year revellers told: Travel today or miss your party
Weather forecasters suffer backlash as storm batters Scotland, cutting power and restricting travel
‘Come clean now, that’s what people need. The worst possible thing is a last-minute change’
NEW Year’s Eve revellers are being encouraged to travel as early as today to avoid missing festivities as rail chaos continues across the country.
Operators were urged to “come clean” over which services are likely to be cancelled this weekend after a second day of major disruption. Journeys across the country were disrupted again yesterday in the aftermath of Storm Gerrit with widespread floods and trees brought down on train lines.
Engineering works and driver shortages also caused delays, with rail firms warning that there is a “high risk” of weekend cancellations because of a lack of train staff. Andy Street, the Conservative mayor of the West Midlands, said that passengers needed clarity on “self-inflicted” cancellations such as crew shortages and which trains would run this weekend.
He said: “Come clean now, that’s what people need. I would prefer to know well in advance what is happening so it can be communicated to passengers and they can make their plans. The worst possible thing is a last-minute change, particularly late trains being cancelled.”
Mr Street acknowledged that it was going to be “tricky” for operators, with many services relying on voluntary working, but added: “My insistence is that we know early what is happening.”
Passengers planning to travel on Northern Rail, which calls at more than 20 per cent of stations in the UK, have been told that tickets booked for Sunday are valid from today as the operator warned them to “expect disruption” on New Year’s Eve. The firm said that services may finish early, not run at all or terminate at different stations owing to engineering works. Tricia Williams, the chief operating officer, said: “Unfortunately, customers travelling over the new year period should expect disruption. This is due to limited train crew availability in some areas and planned engineering works. We strongly advise customers to ‘check before you travel’ on those days.”
Meanwhile, Crosscountry, which operates throughout the UK from Aberdeen to Penzance, said that tickets for Sunday can be used on Saturday or New Year’s Day instead, as long as they had been bought on or before yesterday, when most disruption started.
The operator said trains would be “extremely busy” and services “may be subject to last-minute cancellations”.
Chiltern Railways, which operates services from London Marylebone towards stops including Oxford, Warwick and Birmingham, said trains after midnight were “not expected” to be affected by staff shortages and that customers would know of any issues on the day of travel. Rail firms are fighting an increasing backlog of passengers after crew shortages exacerbated delays caused by Storm Gerrit.
The Met Office said it would review its weather alert system yesterday after complaints that it had not given sufficient warning of the severe impacts Storm Gerrit would bring.
THE Met Office has pledged to review its weather alerts after a backlash from residents in Scotland who claim they were broadsided by the ferocity of Storm Gerrit.
Yellow warnings issued by the UK’S weather service had suggested a low chance of severe impacts from the storm, which has battered much of the country with 80mph winds, blizzards and heavy rain.
In the wake of travel chaos caused by snow, flooding and fallen trees, the Met Office has been challenged over whether amber alerts should have been issued ahead of the storm.
David Duguid, the Conservative MP for Banff and Buchan, is among those who have raised concerns. Posting on social media, he wrote: “The effect of the weather in north-east Scotland in last 24 hours has felt far more serious than ‘yellow’. Many of my constituents asking why this wasn’t amber.”
Residents in Fort Augustus in the Highlands had similar concerns. The area has been among the hardest hit with heavy winds causing power cuts and road closures from fallen trees.
David Harvey, 67, a retired bus driver and an ex-serviceman said: “I don’t think the weather warning was good enough, it said it was a yellow warning, but the wind here was the worst that anyone can remember, people would have been better prepared if we had known how bad the storm was going to be. We were effectively cut off all day and night. Every road out of the village was blocked with fallen trees for hours last night.”
Some 8,000 homes in north-east Scotland and Shetland were still without power yesterday morning.
It came as the Liberal Democrats called on Rishi Sunak to convene a Cobra meeting after a supercell thunderstorm – which occurs when a storm rotates in a circle of about two to six miles wide, causing a strong vertical updraft – moved across northwest England.
The damage inflicted by Storm Gerrit included roofs being ripped off homes in Stalybridge, Tameside when a “localised tornado” swept through the Greater Manchester town. Residents in the badly-hit village of Carrbrook described their homes as being in a state of “absolute disaster”.
Torrential downpours in the Lake District saw the Great Langdale Valley record 80mm of rain, nearly half the usual 178mm monthly rainfall for December, the Met Office said.
Ferry operator DFDS temporarily suspended sailings between Dover and France because of rough conditions in the Channel.
It is understood that the Met Office is unable to issue different weather warnings for “hyper local locations”, but a spokesman said that as Storm Gerrit subsides, the efficiency of their alerts will be reviewed “as part of this event as usual in the coming days”.
The spokesman added that the warning was not raised to amber because “the likelihood of disruption on a county scale remained too low to escalate until a very short lead time”. He added: “Once impacts were observed the benefit of escalation would have been very limited as emergency services were already responding to the situation. We will review the efficiency of the warnings as part of this event as usual in the coming days.”
According to the Met Office, a yellow warning means the weather will cause some low-level impacts, including some disruption to travel in a few places, but many people may be able to continue with their daily routine.
Guidance on weather alerts from its website adds: “Other yellow warnings are issued when the weather could bring much more severe impacts to the majority of people, but the certainty of those impacts occurring is much lower.”
Amber warnings mean there is the possibility of travel delays, road and rail closures, power cuts and the potential risk to life and property while red alerts mean travel should be avoided as “it is very likely that there will be a risk to life, with substantial disruption to travel, energy supplies and possibly widespread damage to property and infrastructure”.