Police cuts putting rail staff and passengers ‘at risk’
Rail unions are warning that staff and passengers are being put at risk by repeated budget reductions which have left fewer British Transport Police officers. The British Transport Police Authority meets in two days from now, when members will be told that the number of officers on patrol has fallen by almost a third since 2009, and that more than 500 posts are currently set to disappear by the end of the current financial year.
Strikes which had been called by the RMT on CrossCountry on all four Saturdays in December have been called off, after the union said its dispute over rest day working had been ‘resolved’, although no details of the settlement have been given.
Business leaders are losing faith in rail, according to the results of a survey published by the Railway Industry Association. A total of 125 companies were asked whether they thought the rail market would contract or grow in the coming year by independent pollsters Savanta, and almost two thirds thought it was likely to contract, as opposed to just under half last year.
An open access application has been submitted again, after the Office of Rail and Road rejected it in July. Alstom’s Wrexham, Shropshire and Midlands Railway Company wants track access rights between Wrexham, Shrewsbury, Telford, Wolverhampton, Walsall, Nuneaton and London Euston.
The Office of Rail and Road has changed its mind about making the 07.00 Avanti West Coast train from Manchester to London an empty stock working carrying only staff, following widespread protests.
The House of Commons is to debate railway reforms in full next week, when the Railways Bill is due to receive its Second Reading.
The railway must prepare for increasing hazards as a result of climate change. The warning has come from the Met Office, three days before the start of ‘meteorological’ winter on Monday. The weather service says British winters are becoming generally wetter, meaning that storms, floods and landslides are becoming more likely.