SMART

[This is the letter we were prompted to send to the Yorkshire Post, published in the print edition on 26 February, following a series of articles and an editorial regarding the Transpennine Route Upgrade]

With reference to the articles and editorial regarding the Transpennine Route Upgrade (The YP, 15/02/2025) we welcome the progress made on a scheme which is long overdue. However, it has to be about much more than getting people from one city centre to another quicker than at present.

We continue to be concerned about the absence of any meaningful consultation about what it will deliver for communities along the route such as ours.

SMART has been campaigning, along with our counterparts in Mossley and Greenfield in Greater Manchester, for the TRU to provide tangible benefits for our communities. Specifically, we want to see our stations become fully accessible, and for the current service which is half-hourly at peak times but only hourly in the daytime to become half-hourly throughout the day.

Whilst the argument for disabled access appears to have been won, this will be of little benefit if all it does is enable wheelchair users to access the platforms at Slaithwaite and Marsden to watch other people’s trains pass through without stopping at 85 mph.

What we are asking for is fairly modest. The majority of routes in the Leeds and Manchester city regions already have two trains per hour. The connectivity that a half-hourly service would provide would benefit businesses, employers and residents alike.

Following the May 2018 timetable meltdown, in which Slaithwaite and Mossley were by some distance the worst stations on the entire network for delays and cancellations, our MPs arranged for us to meet with the then Secretary of State for Transport, Chris Grayling.

At the end of the meeting, we asked him whether the completed Transpennine Route Upgrade would deliver two trains per hour for Mossley, Greenfield, Marsden and Slaithwaite. He said he didn’t know but would find out and let us know. In the following six years neither he, nor any of his successors, nor Network Rail have been prepared to answer this simple and obvious question.

In an interview given to The Guardian in 2019, Andrew Haines (then, as now, Chief Executive of Network Rail) is quoted as saying that part of his prescription for change is to consult more; for example, on the biggest scheme Network Rail will be tasked with in this period, the Transpennine Route Upgrade, Haines says passenger groups should be clearly informed about the years of closures and disruption it will entail on the line between Manchester and Leeds, and given a choice; “Do we want to get the pain over and done with, very intense pain, or prolong it?”

The severe disruption which Andrew Haines referred to has already started, with a month-long closure two years ago and numerous weekend closures since then. In 2025 there will be at least 19 weekends with no train service at Slaithwaite & Marsden culminating in a month-long closure in September.

We have repeatedly requested for the consultation that Andrew Haines talked about to take place, and for it to be meaningful. We have been met by a refusal to discuss what outcomes the project will deliver for our communities. Residents’ and passengers’ attitudes towards the disruption cannot be considered outside the context of what the project will deliver for our communities.

Our railway industry leaders, from the Department for Transport downward, should spend less time congratulating themselves on how wonderful TRU is going to be for the big cities at either end, and more time fulfilling the promises of meaningful consultation about what outcomes it should deliver for the communities in between.