Mayor says he will keep EMR’s “feet to the fire” over Sheffield to London service cuts
“It simply isn’t okay to communicate with the travelling public that those changes are going to happen at such short notice"
South Yorkshire Mayor Oliver Coppard has said he will keep rail company EMR’s “feet to the fire” to improve their Sheffield to London services after they announced cuts.
The mayor said today (July 20): “We found out late on Friday afternoon that East Midlands Railway were cutting a number of services between Sheffield and London, reducing the number of carriages on some of those services.
“It simply isn’t okay to communicate with the travelling public that those changes are going to happen at such short notice and inconvenience everybody trying to run their daily lives. It just isn’t all right.
“I’ve let EMR know that we need to see improvements quickly. They say it’s a temporary timetable in place until autumn, and I’ll be keeping their feet to the fire and making sure they make those improvements as quickly as possible.”
The firm has blamed problems with its new Aurora train fleet.
The mayor called for rail to be brought into public ownership.
“That’s what the government have already said they are doing. I know they’re doing that in other parts of the country but these services here in South Yorkshire have been getting worse for months,” he said.
“I’ve been using services between London and Sheffield most of my adult life and they’ve got worse and worse over the last few months. They need to improve quickly, but ultimately, we need to bring them back under public control so they’re run in the interests of the public.”
He said that he will be speaking to new Prime Minister Andy Burnham about the issue.
Mayor Coppard said: “He knows that it’s the lifeblood of our community. It’s how you build a bigger and a better economy. And ultimately, I’m going to be taking this to him and saying what we need to see in South Yorkshire is improvements quickly.”
Henri Murison, chief executive of the Northern Powerhouse Partnership, representing the North’s leading businesses, joined in the criticism.
He said that the Powerhouse and South Yorkshire businesses have jointly written to Lord Hendy, the rail minister, “because we’re sick and tired of the way that the business community here in this city, and in Rotherham, and across the north, is being treated by East Midlands Railway.
“They’re letting down not only individual passengers but the regional economy, because fundamentally, the business community here — those seeking to attract investment — rely on the fact that people can get here.
“The fact that they’ve allowed their service to decline so much that they’re now having to cancel services in advance – taking them out of the timetable rather than cancelling them during the day, which is what they’ve been doing for the last few weeks and months – is a shocking indictment.
“And the way that they mismanaged the introduction of their new rolling stock. We do need those new trains that are now three years late.
“We need to make sure in the interim that they’ve got the depot capacity, whether it’s at their own depots or others, to keep their trains in service, and that they keep hold of their older trains as long as possible.
“Because without a serious plan to restore the service, we can’t give genuine clarity and confidence to the business community and the travelling public that this is going to be anything other than a short-term issue. This issue needs to be resolved.”