Rail compromise

Time for constructive dialogue

AS THE region braces itself for disruption from strike action, once again, the Transport Secretary Grant Shapps is right to call on unions to be constructive.

However, it is also incumbent on the Department for Transport to come to a compromise as transport workers fight for a better standard of living. The track travels both ways.

Mr Shapps highlights the disruption today’s and Saturday’s strike will have on the region with the Ebor Festival taking place in York.

But rather than pit people against one another, thus far the Government has failed to take control of the narrative on the rail strikes, it would be better for all to come to a resolution.

The Department for Transport is right to point to the need for modernisation, given how the pandemic has changed the way people use the railways.

And it is interesting that the Transport Secretary uses the watered down Integrated Rail Plan (IRP), which he says “will see £96bn invested into high speed rail, electrified lines and faster trains across the North” as an example of the Government’s commitment to the region’s railways.

As South Yorkshire’s Mayor Oliver Coppard rightly points out it is “far from the transformative infrastructure this was supposed to give the North”.

The region is a coiled spring of potential, ready to spring into action but it quite clearly needs more than what has been promised in the IRP.

People in Yorkshire will no doubt take a dim view of that being held up as an example of the Government’s commitment to levelling up.

After all, if the country is to meet its net zero targets then transport in the regions will be key.