[Wera Hobhouse, MP for Bath]
Bath’s Lib-Dem MP, Wera Hobhouse has criticised Great Western Railway’s weekend services as ‘abysmally unreliable’, warning that poor Sunday performance is harming city commuters and the hospitality sector.
In the South West, passengers who rely on trains to commute to work and access major cities like London have long suffered from inadequate and inconsistent services despite steep fare increases year after year.
Mrs Hobhouse raised the issue directly with the Transport Secretary, Heidi Alexander, in Parliament, highlighting persistent problems with Sunday services. She stressed that Bath’s hospitality sector depends heavily on weekend trains, yet Sunday services continue to be plagued by long delays, packed trains, and cancellations.
The Bath MP noted that the previous Transport Secretary rightly said that we should not have to rely on staff volunteering for shifts to run Sunday timetables, yet that is exactly what is happening. She pressed the Department for Transport on what concrete steps are being taken to overhaul staff contracts so that Sunday services are guaranteed and can support the local economy.
Ms Alexander responded to the Bath MP by agreeing that there should be no difference in reliability between weekday and weekend services. She continued to say there is a “raft of different practices across train operating companies”, but that the Government has a plan to ensure that drivers and train crew are available and they will continue to work on that “specifically on the Great Western route”.
Mrs Hobhouse has pushed time and again in Parliament to improve service performance in Bath, especially to prevent residents paying eye-watering ticket fares for unreliable services. In just the four weeks between December 7th and January 6th this year, 4.6% of scheduled trains did not call at Bath Spa station, while only 66% of trains arrived within three minutes of their scheduled time.
Meanwhile, a standard annual season ticket between Bath Spa and London Paddington, a common journey for many local commuters, costs a whopping £13,016.
The Bath MP stood firmly against unjust fare hikes, repeatedly calling for fares to be frozen, as well as urging for a review of the ticketing system. Most recently she supported the Liberal Democrats’ Rail Passengers’ Charter Bill, which would enshrine in law improvements to customer experience and value for money for passengers across the region, bringing services into the 21st century.
Wera Hobhouse, Liberal Democrat MP for Bath, said:
“Passengers in Bath are paying some of the highest fares in the country and simply are not getting the service they deserve. It cannot be right that Sunday services rely on voluntary overtime to function. Bath’s economy, especially our hospitality sector, depends on reliable weekend trains.
“Commuters are forking out more than £13,000 a year for season tickets, yet trains are late, cancelled, or failing to stop at Bath Spa altogether. That is unacceptable. The Government must urgently overhaul outdated staffing arrangements and hold Great Western Railway to account so that residents and businesses in Bath can rely on their rail service seven days a week.”
