Railways: Bradford

(asked on 1st June 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what recent estimate he has made of the cost to the public purse to provide the additional train services between London Kings Cross, Shipley and Bradford as set out in the East Coast franchise.


Answered by
Chris Heaton-Harris Portrait
Chris Heaton-Harris
Secretary of State for Northern Ireland
This question was answered on 9th June 2020

An additional service between Kings Cross, Shipley and Bradford will be delivered in July 2020. The outstanding committed services will be delivered as soon as capacity is available.

The introduction of the additional services was originally delayed from May 2019 because of delays to the introduction of LNER’s new Azuma trains, in line with guidance from the Industry Programme Management Office Steering Group established following the May 2018 timetable issues. Since then it has become clear that capacity constraints in the Bradford area mean that integrating the LNER services with the existing, intensive Northern commuter services, while protecting their reliability, will be challenging. Infrastructure upgrades may be needed to resolve these capacity constraints

I and my officials met by video conference with Network Rail and LNER, with the Honourable Member present, on 1 June 2020.

The Department has not made a specific recent estimate of the cost to the public purse. The additional services were contracted as part of an overall package in 2015 from Virgin Trains East Coast, the then franchisee, and delivery of them was not affected by the transfer of services to LNER. LNER expects the additional services to be revenue generative, and to have additional wider economic benefits for the areas and communities they serve

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