Mayor of Greater Manchester's latest statement on Avanti West Coast

Mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, has issued the following statement on Avanti West Coast and the continued disruption to its rail services between Manchester and London.

Andy Burnham, Mayor of Greater Manchester, said: “Avanti West Coast has failed to deliver on their commitment to explain how they will restore services between Manchester and London and failed to bring the stability to the timetable which they promised. Every day that this continues is a day of damage to the Greater Manchester economy and it cannot be allowed to continue.

“Weeks ago, the company tried to blame their workers for the problems. However, their inability to produce a rescue plan by the deadline we set has flushed out the truth: it is managers, not the workers, who are responsible for the chaos. In their desperation to blame the unions for everything, the Government has let this company off the hook and let passengers down.

“This is a company being paid millions of pounds to operate trains on the West Coast Main Line but is only delivering a threadbare service and a very poor one at that. They have to be held to account. So far, Greater Manchester has been doing that alone, but I am now urging the incoming Prime Minister and Transport Secretary to sit down with us and sort this out. This service is critical to our country’s economy and we need to fix it together.

“For Avanti, this is the last chance saloon. They need to understand the urgency of the situation. They should today be making a full public apology for their failures and providing a detailed explanation of the steps they are taking to fix things. Anything less is further evidence that they don’t deserve the privilege of running the UK’s most important train line.”

Article Published: 03/09/2022 11:47 AM