Burnham calls on PM to step in over ‘rail chaos’

THE Prime Minister has been urged to step in personally to end rail “chaos” in the north of England after summer disruption is thought to have cost businesses more than £1m a day at its height.

Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham said the intervention was needed as he claimed there were no signs of improvement in services despite repeated calls for action from Transport Secretary Chris Grayling.

In a letter to Theresa May, he wrote that performance on Northern Rail services “continued to be poor” following Mr Grayling’s statement in May that the issue was the number one priority for his department.

It came as a report by the Northern Powerhouse Partnership (NPP) revealed a major impact on businesses, commuters and families, with former chancellor George Osborne calling for powers including spending to be devolved to Transport for the North.

It said that businesses had lost almost £38m because of Northern Rail disruption, with the cost up to £1.3m a day at its worst.

And some trans-Pennine routes had seen half of services cancelled or seriously delayed on the worst days.

The full cost to the north is likely to be considerably higher, as while Northern Rail provided figures for its affected services, Trans Pennine did not. Over the entire period, using Northern Rail figures, 945,180 hours were lost to delays, an average of 22,504 per day.

Mr Burnham pointed out that in the first three weeks of its emergency timetable, introduced in June, services in its central region arriving on time had declined to 77.2%, compared to 88.4% in the corresponding period last year.