Transport Connectivity: Midlands and North Wales

Debate between Josh Newbury and Dave Robertson

Thursday 22nd January 2026 Westminster Hall

[Josh Newbury (Cannock Chase) (Lab)]

I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak with you in the Chair, Ms Furniss. I will focus most of my speech on Rugeley Trent Valley station, which is of interest to my constituents, particularly those in Rugeley and Brereton, even though it is technically just over the border in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield (Dave Robertson)—a neighbour constituency-wise and in the Chamber today.

As we know, transport connectivity does not stop at constituency or council boundaries, and neither does the impact of stations where the facilities are not adequate for everybody. Rugeley Trent Valley is a striking example. The station has three platforms, yet only platform 3, serving trains towards Lichfield and London, is step-free. Platforms 1 and 2, serving far-distant locations like Birmingham, Stafford and Crewe, can be reached only via a steep footbridge. In practice, wheelchair users, parents with prams, older people and those with limited mobility are effectively barred from using two thirds of the station. With the delays that often characterise Avanti West Coast services and short connection times, running across from one platform to the next is simply not an option for many of my constituents.

Let me give some real-life, human examples. One constituent in her 80s told me that she can no longer visit her family because she cannot carry a suitcase up and down the steep staircases safely. That highlights how the barriers are not limited to wheelchair users. Another constituent recounted travelling with a friend who has serious mobility issues from the waist down. He arrived at the station to discover that the only way for him to catch their connecting train was to physically haul himself up and down the stairs. Station staff did what they could, but goodwill alone cannot overcome infrastructure that excludes so many people in our communities.

People are desperate to make journeys for work, healthcare, or family reasons, and they will often attempt unsafe routes if no accessible alternatives exist. While the British Transport police and station operators do what they can to manage risks, long detours or temporary measures are no substitute for basic dignity and safety.

Using the database of the Office of Rail and Road, I noticed that more than 200,000 people exited and entered Rugeley Trent Valley station in 2024-25. A constituent highlighted that other stations on the network, even ones with fairly similar footfall or electrified lines, such as Kidsgrove station near Stoke-on-Trent, have been upgraded with lifts, waiting rooms, and toilets. Clearly, it is not a question of engineering impossibility, but of prioritisation.

West Midlands Trains and London Northwestern Railway have told me that they fully support installing lifts at Rugeley Trent Valley. They acknowledge the station’s accessibility issues and the impact on passengers, but as many hon. Members will know, major upgrades such as this fall under Network Rail’s Access for All programme, which is always heavily oversubscribed. Over 2,500 stations in the country require upgrades, and Network Rail applies strict criteria, prioritising stations by passenger numbers and the proximity of the next accessible station. For Rugeley, nearby stations such as Stafford or Lichfield Trent Valley score higher under that system.

Although Rugeley has been discussed and even shortlisted in the past, the next allocation of funding is still several years away. In the meantime passengers are offered so-called mitigations, such as being carried to the next accessible station and sent back again or provided with discretionary road transport. For many of my constituents those are simply not viable or dignified solutions. They are workarounds for systemic failure, showing exactly what regional inequality looks like, with smaller towns often having to wait endlessly at the back of the queue while people with the greatest need are left to navigate shortcomings in the system.

[Dave Robertson]

My hon. Friend elucidates the problems that we face at Rugeley Trent Valley station. He is a doughty campaigner and it is a pleasure to work with him and to follow his lead. The issue affects not only his constituents but a number of mine as well. I want to go back to his remark that, “The next station is Lichfield Trent Valley.” Very few people in this room will have tried to do that journey, which is not simple. There is no direct road linking the two places. We have to go through Armitage in a circuitous route. Sometimes just looking at the distance between two stations is not sufficient; we have to look at travel times as well. The practicalities of being able to do that I feel are sometimes overlooked by the Access for All process. He was making an excellent point and I want to reinforce that.

[Josh Newbury]

I thank my hon. Friend for highlighting the plethora of issues we have at Rugeley Trent Valley, which are not restricted to the footbridge. Coming in and out of the station, travellers are met with a national speed limit rural road with very poor visibility from both sides, so the problems at the station are plentiful. Even though it provides a fantastic facility for people to be able to get to destinations as far away as London, it really is not set up very well to handle that level of traffic.

On a more positive note I would like to highlight progress on the midlands rail hub, which will strengthen connections across the west midlands and help more people to get around quicker and easier. I hope and expect that the rail hub will have a positive knock-on effect on the whole region, including on the Chase line that serves my constituency. The project is an example of how investment can make a tangible difference to everyday travel and I welcome the Government’s commitment to progressing the project and delivering improvements, as confirmed in the Budget.

It should also be said that the vast majority of public transport journeys in Cannock Chase are made on buses, and it is buses that often feature heavily in my postbag. I was immensely proud to serve on the Bill Committee for the Bus Services Act 2025 and to support legislation that begins to address the long-term decline in our bus services. Under the previous Government, not only were more than half of all routes in my constituency lost, but the frequency and reliability of services were eroded. I very much welcome the unshackling of councils when it comes to setting up publicly owned bus companies and seizing the opportunities to take back control of fares, routes and timetables, for which my constituents have been calling for many years.

The Act is on the statute book, so now the ball is in the court of Reform-led Staffordshire county council, which so far seems to be showing the same lack of interest in boosting bus routes and taking advantage of franchising as the previous Conservative administration. For residents in parts of my constituency that need reliable buses the most and yet do not live on a route at all, such as those in the Norton East area of Norton Canes, Slitting Mill and Etchinghill in Rugeley to name a few, action is urgently needed.

Rural Communities

Debate between Josh Newbury and Dave Robertson

Wednesday 7th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Josh Newbury]

I very much agree with my hon. Friend. I must confess that I am a little envious of her, because she has the Mayor of West Yorkshire backing up the Labour Government and using that investment wisely—and, I hope, making use of the powers introduced by that Act—whereas the Conservatives on Staffordshire county council took absolutely no interest in doing so during their time in power. The recent news of Reform UK’s cost-cutting review suggests that our bus services will continue to be neglected.

[Dave Robertson (Lichfield) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend and constituency neighbour for his kind words and his campaigning on this issue. As I am sure he well knows, Rugeley Trent Valley train station serves a very rural area—the footprint of the station is mainly in my constituency—but it also provides access to the west coast main line for his constituents. It is not accessible by a bus service. Does he agree that we should be extending bus travel, so that people can get to a train station by bus and get all the access and opportunities that come with that, rather than having what we do at the minute, which is a legacy of Conservative failure?

[Josh Newbury]

I could not agree more with my hon. Friend and constituency neighbour. I would add that Rugeley Trent Valley also does not have disabled access, which is a big issue. The two of us are campaigning hard on that, and I hope to see some progress on it this year.

Following the shameful revelation that Reform chose a supporter of white supremacy to lead our county council and the fact that the DOGE unit has yet to visit, Reform has just announced a cut of £1 million to concessionary fares in the coming financial year. Transparency clearly is not in its vocabulary, because Reform refuses to say who will be affected by these cuts. We cannot slash £1 million from the concessions relied on by thousands of residents without having an adverse effect on them, particularly in rural communities. While this Government are giving councils more money for road repairs and public transport, Reform-led Staffordshire county council is filling even fewer potholes than the Conservatives did, and bus services are not improving as they should. The rural communities that were let down by the old Conservative party are now being let down by the new turquoise conservative party.

I would love to have said much more, including on mobile phone coverage and healthcare, but I will finish by saying that the clearest way to support our rural communities is by standing with the farmers who put food on our tables, and by ensuring that our constituents can get around on reliable buses and can access healthcare that is just as good as that enjoyed by people in big cities, because rural Britain is and will always be a vital part of our nation.