North of Tyne mayor Jamie Driscoll has joined counterparts from around the North in calling for train operator TransPennine Express to be stripped of its contract.
The five Labour mayors say the service needs a “fresh start” after nearly a quarter of trains were cancelled between February and March. Mr Driscoll has joined mayors from West and South Yorkshire, Greater Manchester and the Liverpool city region to tell Transport Secretary Mark Harper that that FirstGroup’s contract to run the service should not be renewed when its deal expires on May 28.
They said a new FirstGroup contract would be “rewarding failure and be a betrayal of passengers in the north”. The call comes after the Office of Rail and Road (ORR) said the FirstGroup-owned company’s cancellation score for the four weeks to March 4 worsened from 7.2% to 23.8% when adjusted to include pre-cancellations due to a shortage of train crew.
