Rail Services: Portsmouth and the South-West

Andrew Turner Excerpts

Wednesday 21st October 2015 Westminster Hall

[Mr Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth South (Mrs Drummond) on securing this, her first Westminster Hall debate. She was fortunate in the ballot, but her constituents are also fortunate to have her representing them. I wish her a long and successful tenure in this House.

I would like to make a few points about the future of Island Line and then about connectivity to the Isle of Wight more generally. Under successive franchises, the physical assets of Island Line, which runs from Ryde Pier Head to Shanklin, have been left to decay disgracefully. The rolling stock—former underground trains—is now 70 or 80 years old and in such poor condition that guards can no longer pass safely between carriages to collect fares. The track is also in a very sorry state. The staff are hard-working and do their best in far from perfect circumstances. They deserve better and I will continue to work with others to make sure they get it.

Following the decision to end the South West Trains franchise in 2017, there has been much debate about the future of Island Line. Indeed, earlier this year, my hon. Friend the Minister kindly met a delegation from the island and subsequently arranged for senior officials to meet council representatives, for which I am grateful. Decisions must be made to find a long-term, sustainable future for the service and that is what the majority of Island Line passengers want, so I invite my hon. Friend to put it on the record again that she is committed to helping to find a long-term, sustainable and financially viable future for Island Line.

Last week, the council made the sensible decision to ask Christopher Garnett OBE to conduct an expert, thorough and independent review of opinions on Island Line’s future. I welcome his appointment and hope the Minister will join me in thanking him for taking up this challenge.

I want to make it crystal clear that I want to find the best way to retain a service from Shanklin to Ryde Pier Head. I hope the Minister will take this opportunity to recognise the importance of the Solent local enterprise partnership. I am looking forward to meeting the chief executive of the LEP, Anne-Marie Mountifield, with the leader of the council next month. One thing I want to discuss with her is how best Mr Garnett’s work can be put into context in considering the wider needs of the island. I am sure it would be helpful if the Government’s support for that objective was placed on the record today.

The Isle of Wight is a wonderful place to live, but we face unique challenges. Connectivity is key to unlocking the island’s economic potential. I urge the Minister to remind South West Trains that it must work with the ferry companies for the remainder of this franchise period to ensure that their services dovetail effectively. Indeed, that should be a key requirement in the new franchise specification so that a new operator is under no illusions about the importance of connectivity. This is a joint responsibility, but I have been told that in the past train timetables have been altered without enough notice for the ferry companies to react. There needs to be much closer planning of services, so that islanders and visitors do not needlessly have to wait for the next ferry.

It is particularly frustrating if passengers have just missed a ferry by moments, as sometimes happens to those who catch the 9.35 train from Waterloo to Southampton Central, which arrives at 10.47, giving only 13 minutes to make the connection to the Red Jet terminal. There is no bus service at that time, so they must take a taxi, but if the train is a few minutes late they miss the Red Jet, which would have got them to West Cowes just before 11.30. Instead they must wait until 11.55 for the car ferry, which will finally deliver them to East Cowes just before 1 o’clock. If they had planned to catch the Red Jet and left their car in West Cowes, they cannot get across the river until 5 o’clock in the morning.

That sort of thing must be considered. It is one of the details that must be seared into the minds of those responsible for planning the rail service that links through to the Isle of Wight. The service from Waterloo to the island via Portsmouth is no better, with the last connecting service to Shanklin leaving Waterloo at 7.30. My plea to the Minister is that the new franchise operator is tasked with helping to find a sustainable future for rail services on the island, and also required to work more closely with the ferry companies to deliver better connectivity across the Solent.

Finally, I turn to a related technical issue that is of great interest to the operators and which I ask the Minister consider. Hovertravel has pointed out that some Isle of Wight stations do not appear as a destination for some parts of the national rail network. The Association of Train Operating Companies must ensure that all Isle of Wight destinations are included in national reservation systems and journey planning. To that end, will the Minister please ask the chief executive of ATOC to arrange a meeting with Hovertravel, Wightlink and Red Funnel to explore this problem and to consider how best it can be addressed?

I know the Minister appreciates the importance of good connectivity and how it contributes to economic growth, and I know she will do all she can to help to ensure the Isle of Wight is not excluded from that.