THE mayor of Liverpool City Region mayor has called on the Transport Secretary to terminate Northern’s rail franchise as soon as possible.

Steve Rotheram and Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham have raised concerns 12 months on from last May’s rail timetable chaos.

They believe Northern has consistently failed to show they are able to take the action required to restore public confidence or deliver their legally-binding franchise requirements.

These include:

• Failure to deliver a significant and sustained improvement in performance – with nearly a fifth of all services arriving late, 28,000 services cancelled, and a huge increase in services being “shortformed” (ie reducing the number of carriages on the train) from 2,825 in December 2018 to 4,172 in April 2019

• Failure to resolve the RMT industrial dispute - which has seen 46 days of strike action

• Failure to operate Sunday services – last Sunday alone there were 165 unplanned cancellations on top of 90 planned cancellations

• Failure to introduce new trains – which means the hated Pacer trains may not be gone by the end of the year as promised

• Failure to deliver new services – such as a range of promised additional hourly services in much-needed parts of the network

The Greater Manchester and Liverpool City Region Mayors are now urging the Department of Transport to implement an "Operator of Last Resort" and bring in a new board and team of directors to run the company as soon possible.

The Department of Transport has a legal duty to provide an Operator of Last Resort to ensure continuity of passenger services, in the event of a franchise failure.

The mayors have called for a commitment from the Government to provide resources to ensure all existing franchise commitments are delivered, including the introduction of new rolling stock, in the event of an Operator of Last Resort being appointed.

The mayors have emphasised the rights of Northern staff must be protected under these new arrangements.

Both Andy Burnham and Steve Rotherham were clear Northern staff have had to work under difficult circumstances and have shown dedication and professionalism despite management failings over the last 12 months.

Liverpool City Region mayor Steve Rotheram said: “For too long the people of the Liverpool City Region and the whole of the North have been forced to accept rail services that are simply not good enough.

"Whether it’s frequent cancellations, short forming of trains or late arrivals Northern’s board have repeatedly failed to deliver on their franchise obligations.

“Given Northern’s consistent failure to provide an acceptable service we believe it is now time for Chris Grayling to terminate their franchise and move to that operator of last resort, as soon as possible.

“Stripping Northern of their franchise will not solve all of the issues with our railways – the problems go far beyond just them - but it would be an important signal that the north is no longer prepared to put up with a second class service and a first step towards building the rail network that passengers deserve.”

Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham has echoed his fellow mayor's thoughts about the situation.

He said: “We have been extremely patient with Northern but enough is enough.

"They promised us that things would be significantly better by May 2019 and that hasn’t happened.

"Train services across Greater Manchester and the North West remain unreliable and over-crowded.

"Sunday services are still subject to widespread cancellation and promises of new rolling stock have not been kept.

“The people of Greater Manchester deserve much better than this.

"That’s why, together with the Mayor of Liverpool City Region, I am calling on the Transport Secretary to strip Arriva Rail North of this franchise and stabilise the franchise under the control of the Government.

"It is only through taking this action that we can restore the trust of the public and deliver a rail network that finally works for its passengers.

“We wish to make clear that we do not blame the staff of Northern who have worked hard over the last year in very difficult circumstances.

"We believe they, and the travelling public, have been let down by Northern’s management who have had plenty of opportunity to show how they will meet franchise requirements but have failed to do so.”

More broadly, the two Mayors are calling on the Government to work with Transport for the North, Transport for Greater Manchester and Merseytravel, for a new vision for rail in the that puts passengers first.

Ministers are being asked to keep all options open, including further devolution to the north and the option of public operation.

In response to the criticism from the mayors, managing director at Northern, David Brown, said: "We agree the North deserves the best possible rail service and are working hard to improve the performance and reliability for customers.

"The unacceptable disruption following the May 2018 timetable change was caused by delays in infrastructure projects out of our control.

"We have apologised to our customers for the pain this caused.

"We have seen two successful timetable changes since then, introducing many more new services.

 "Since last year, we have made a large number of improvements for customers – including better punctuality, investment in new and refurbished trains, over 2,000 new services and hundreds more people employed to help customers.

"These improvements are still a work in progress – but we are making things better for our customers.

"We want and expect things to continue to improve.” 

Northern says nearly nine out of 10 of its services are now arriving within five minutes of their scheduled time and that cancellations are dramatically down since May 2018.

The operator will introduce 101 brand new trains this summer and is refurbishing the rest of its fleet to a "very high standard".