Anna Sabine
Main Page: Anna Sabine (Liberal Democrat - Frome and East Somerset)Department Debates - View all Anna Sabine's debates with the Department for Transport
(1 day, 14 hours ago)
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Anna Sabine (Frome and East Somerset) (LD)
I am pleased to serve under your chairship, Mr Efford. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Max Wilkinson) for securing this important debate.
As we have heard, the work at Old Oak Common will be hugely impactful on the south-west for at least the next seven years. A month from work starting, however, councils, MPs, businesses and interest groups are only just being notified of the impact on services. That is a totally unacceptable approach to public consultation. This work is meant to last for seven years or more. For us in Frome and East Somerset, it follows 10 years of disruption to our rail services from the electrification of the main line and the construction of the Elizabeth line. The new project will affect approximately 56 million passenger journeys a year through Paddington and will push people on to other lines, such as South Western Railway, which cannot handle the passengers it has at the moment, let alone the numbers it would need to handle to avoid disruption.
My constituents have been left in the dark about how the project will affect them. There has been little to no consultation with local businesses or groups about the disruption. That is unacceptable. This Christmas, our railways are already being delayed thanks to essential work happening in Westbury, leaving many struggling to get from Frome to London. Furthermore, many people and businesses relocated to places like Frome and East Somerset during covid, partly based on the time and regularity of services. They will not have been aware of the plans when they made that decision.
The Prime Minister’s response to the hon. Member for Exmouth and Exeter East (David Reed) at Prime Minister’s questions on 27 November was welcome, but his comments that services are unaffected between Exeter and London Euston show his lack of understanding of the situation. Many of my constituents use Bath Spa station. The train from Exeter does not run through it, and it travels through Frome a maximum of twice a day. We are lucky that we have a stop on a main line, but many people will not even have access to that.
The planned work will leave the south-west with some of the slowest inter-city services in the country. It will severely reduce the number of trains running and the number of seats available. It will be a direct hit on the economies of the south-west and Wales; it will affect people not only now, but far into the future, as they adapt their investment and business decisions accordingly. We already have unreliable services with frankly rubbish wi-fi and mobile signal, which hampers people’s ability to work on the train. Millions of passengers will be displaced as a result of the work, which will increase journeys on roads and push services to other stations. Regular users of the M4 and M5 will dread the prospect of more cars on those motorways, particularly at weekends.
No one is denying that the work needs to happen or is going to happen. However, it seems that there has been little to no consideration of the impact on the south-west. I urge the Government to look into a programme of measures, many of which were brilliantly set out by my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham, that would mitigate the impact of the disruption caused by Old Oak Common and ensure that the south-west is not being left behind.