Claire Perry MP’s latest election leaflet makes claims about the work she has done for her constituents. This includes the statement: “Protected train services from Bedwyn and Pewsey and delivered station improvements for passengers.”
So the announcement by First Great Western (FGW) that Bedwyn services were being downgraded following the award of the new ‘Direct Award’ of the franchise to FGW must have come as a bit of a shock.
Mrs Perry has responded with a defensive letter to a local newspaper. She explains how her position as Rail Minister had prevented her being involved in decisions about the area’s rail services: “This did not stop me from lobbying vigorously as a local MP for improvements in our services, and we have secured some good results in this award.”
“However, there is a possible operational change for passengers using Bedwyn station as a result of investment decisions taken several years ago. As the local MP I am determined to make sure these changes do not happen.”
She says Pewsey services are safe and “we are likely to see more services and hopefully new bi-modal brand new Hitachi trains.”
Bedwyn is a different matter: “For Bedwyn passengers, however, the Direct Award did not solve the problems arising from previous decisions about track electrification which could result in the replacement of some direct London services with a shuttle service to Newbury.”
The letter sent by FGW to the Bedwyn Trains Passenger Group (which Marlborough News Online has already reported) makes that ‘could’ and ‘some’ seem over optimistic. With that letter, the ‘could’ has become ‘will’ and the ‘some’ has become ‘all but two services a day’.
She blames the decision to stop the electrification at Newbury on ‘a previous government’ and says that the Department’s analysis of the business case for continuing electrification to Bedwyn, carried out at her request (before she became Rail Minister), was “very positive”.
She explains that this scheme is now in the hands of Network Rail and she has urged them to confirm the extension of electrification to Bedwyn when the next update on the scheme is published in the summer.
Meanwhile FGW will trial battery powered trains which could solve the Bedwyn issue at some point in the future.
Blaming the previous government is part and parcel of the coalition government’s discourse. But in May 2010 they put the whole scheme (and all major projects) on hold while a ‘return-on-investment’ review was carried out. The go ahead was only announced by Philip Hammond in November 2010 – so they had time to change the plans and extend the electrification to Bedwyn.
The franchise award to FGW has been criticised over the small size of the premium FGW will be paying the government. This has been set at £68million. But, as the Guardian has reported, FGW had originally declined to continue operating the network after 2013 to avoid paying about £800m in premiums.
The Campaign for Better Transport has questioned whether a direct award without competition was ‘rewarding failure’. In normal circumstances, such a direct award could have been open to challenge by European rail operators under EU competition laws.
Dr Emma Dawnay, the Green Party candidate for the Devizes constituency, told Marlborough News Online: “Having our direct service to Bedwyn cut is going to be very disruptive, and will result in many people using their cars to drive to Newbury or further.”
“Instead of funding the HS2 (at a cost of £42.6 billion), which is a vanity project, we should be investing to upgrade bus and rail services all around the country, so more people can leave their cars at home.”
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