Government rail performance not on track (Ipswich Liberal Democrats)

Ipswich Liberal Democrats <info@ipswichlibdems.org.uk>

Government rail performance not on track

September 10, 2007 9:35 AM

The following letter appeared in the Evening Star recently

Recently Liberal Democrats have been campaigning about the many problems the rail network has been experiencing, highlighting research which has shown the railways are becoming less reliable and more over-crowded. The quarterly figures initially released by the Office of Rail Regulation in July 2007 show that fewer trains arrived on time compared to the previous year; 11.9% of trains arrived late over the last year, with a nearly 140m individual journeys delayed. Meanwhile rail fares rose by 3.5% above inflation in the last year alone, with people in Suffolk paying some of the most expensive fares in the country.

These figures highlight Labour's record of failure on our railways. Rather than improving the network as ministers claim, things are clearly still getting worse.

Passenger satisfaction with rail travel is plummeting as more and more people become angry about having to foot the bill for making a green choice with transport. It's clear Labour plan to fund future investment in railways through greater and greater rail fare hikes. At the same time however the Government says it wants to encourage increased rail use. The Government can't have it both ways.

The Liberal Democrats have proposed introducing tolling for road freight to encourage the movement of goods by rail and taxing internal flights within the UK, to provide funds for investing in our railways, rather than letting passengers pay for improvements through higher ticket prices.

Gordon Brown claims to take the environment seriously, but his Government is completely failing to reduce emissions by getting people out of their cars and on to public transport. It's time the Government stopped taking our railways for granted and proposed some progressive, helpful solutions which improved the railways without passing this cost on to travel-weary passengers.

Sincerely

Andrew Cann

Deputy Leader

Liberal Democrats

Suffolk County Council