Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of the Office of Rail and Road’s decision to reject the open access application from Wrexham, Shropshire & Midlands Railway (WSMR) on passengers.

The Department remains committed to Open Access where it provides genuine benefits for passengers through improved connectivity and does not disproportionately impact taxpayers or performance of the network. That is why we supported WSMR’s application, acknowledging the benefits that it would provide to passengers in the communities served while noting potential capacity constraints on the West Coast Main Line.

Access to the railway network, however, is a decision for the Office of Rail and Road (ORR) in its capacity as independent regulator, and it is only right that ORR considers capacity and impacts to passengers across the network more broadly as key parts of its assessments. In this instance, ORR deemed that WSMR’s proposed services could not practicably be introduced due to lack of capacity on the West Coast Main Line.