Herts Lib Dems condemn Govia failings

Liberal Democrat County Councillors have unanimously backed an all party motion condemning the problems caused to travellers in Hertfordshire by train companies, Network Rail and the Department of Transport. The County Council agreed to tell them all that they are failing to look after the interests of Hertfordshire residents and businesses.

Liberal Democrat Transport spokesperson Councillor Steve Jarvis said, “Herts commuters and other travellers have been let down by Govia who have planned a new timetable that does not meet their needs, by Network Rail who are responsible for trains being replaced by buses between Stevenage and Hertford perhaps for as long as two years and the Department of Transport who ordered new trains without enough seats and prioritised services to Horsham and Brighton over maintained and improved services to London.

“Now, to make matters even worse, Govia have failed to introduce the new timetable properly and are cancelling large numbers of trains every day. Some reports suggest that they knew several months ago that they would not be able to introduce the new services as planned, but they are apparently still unable to tell passengers which trains will run the next day.

“Hopefully those running our railways so poorly will take some notice when the County Council adds its voice to those of thousands of commuters and other travellers.”