Unreliable. Late. Cancelled. Those are three of the most common words I hear from my constituents when discussing the performance of our local train services in Mid Bedfordshire. And that is why I worked so hard to secure a debate in Parliament to highlight the issues local people are facing with Thameslink services.
And it was a little ironic that as I tried to make my way from Mid Bedfordshire into Westminster the day before my debate, I experienced what so many constituents experience every single day. My first two trains were cancelled and the third was severely delayed.
About 1.5 million passengers use Harlington and Flitwick stations in my constituency each year to get to work, meet friends and go shopping. And if they happen to use the 7.43 am service from Flitwick, their train would have been cancelled 28% of the time in the last 100 days and arrived late 42% of the time. That is simply not good enough.
It’s the experiences of local people that matter the most to me and that’s why, after securing the debate, I asked constituents to share their stories with me in a survey on my website. I received hundreds of responses in just a few days; that’s how strong people feel about the performance of rail services. 80% of those who responded told me that they had been impacted by a cancellation in the past month, and 88% told me that they had experienced a delay of more than 10 minutes. We should be encouraging people to use our railways, not pushing them onto our congested roads or worse, stay at home.
In fact, mere days after my debate we learned that rail fares are set to be hiked again this year. If fares are going to increase, commuters and all railway users deserve a reliable and efficient service. Sadly, that is not the standard they are receiving of late in Mid Bedfordshire, and I’m sure the same can be said across much of the country.
It is, of course, easy to complain about the performance of our trains, but by securing the debate I wanted to work to find a way to make things better. If the Government wants to renationalise our railways, it needs to be fully aware of the issues it will be facing and the improvements that need to be made. That’s why I wanted to secure this debate – to get the Government to plan ahead. So that we can focus, not just on the current issues, but on some of the future challenges coming down the tracks in the not-too-distant future.
A high-performing Thameslink service is vital to support economic growth in the Oxford to Cambridge growth corridor, which is one of this Government’s central missions.
Thameslink services already link London to Cambridge, but they will one day also link London with East West Rail at Cambridge, Tempsford and Bedford. If we want to maximise the return on investment of that infrastructure project, its connections into the wider train network need to be fast and reliable.
If the proposed new Universal theme park at Kempston Hardwick gets the go-ahead, we also need to ensure we have a rail service that can cope with the extra demand. We need to get ahead of that. We also have the prospect of an expanding Luton Airport to plan for, with many more passengers passing through our area. And with East West Rail on the horizon, we need a Thameslink service that is reliable enough for people to be able to count on making their connection train at Bedford. These are undoubtedly challenges for our rail services, but if we get it right there are fantastic opportunities for Bedfordshire and beyond.
Our Rail Users Deserve Better
