‘Give Transport for the North power to stop this from happening again’

UNPRECEDENTED DELAYS and cancellations on Northern rail services have damaged the North’s economy and “angry” people in the region should be given more power over transport to guard against a repeat, the Northern Powerhouse Partnership (NPP) has said. Director Henri Murison,

said the chaos has hindered companies’ ability to get staff into work. It has also discouraged people from taking jobs in certain areas as the current state of the railways shows commuting in the North is “not a sustainable life choice”. Mr Murison told

“The human cost – a lot of people have missed their child’s bedtimes in the last two weeks – is going to put people off taking available opportunities.

“We need to make the infrastructure better and more robust and give people certainty that when they commit to contributing to the economy by going to work, wherever that may be, that the rail system will be reliable enough to get them there.”

The NPP is calling for powers of oversight over Network Rail to be devolved to northern political and business leaders who make up Transport for the North. Mr Murison said that although Network Rail is ultimately responsible for the chaos on the Northern network because it has not delivered engineering improvements in time, Transport Secretary Chris Grayling did not keep a close enough eye on the state-funded infrastructure operator and how the delays may affect the introduction of new timetables. The failure shows “the detail should be left to us in the North to administer because I think those who are based here, particularly TfN if they had all the levers at their disposal, could do a better job”, Mr Murison said.

He added: “The system of accountability to make sure Network Rail delivered what it needed to deliver has not worked.

“Where the Government needs to learn lessons is that they can and should have played their role in addressing this earlier.

“But they also need to then think about what they can do to stop this happening again in the future.

“The significant transfer of powers to the North to take responsibility, not just through Transport for the North planning our future infrastructure, but also for ensuring that it’s actually delivered, I think is a reasonable response to address a very significant level of anger on the part of the northern travelling public.”