Plea for Virgin to retake north Wales train services

Business leaders want Sir Richard Branson to retake north Wales to London rail services after it was revealed more than one in five direct trains were being cancelled.

Avanti West Coast has been responsible for mainline services between Holyhead and London since 2019, with former franchise holder - Sir Richard's Virgin Group - previously responsible for running the services for 22 years.

North Wales Business Council is now calling on the entrepreneur to step in and establish a new "open access" rail route on the line, saying the current service is "staggeringly bad".

Avanti said it is "fully committed to serving north Wales" and "working hard to address the fundamental performance issues as well and continuing to invest in a better service".

Virgin said it would "welcome the opportunity to discuss what is needed", and is "extremely proud of our time serving the passengers of north Wales".

Last year Avanti West Coast was ordered to develop a recovery plan, aimed at addressing poor performance on vital routes.

Its north Wales-London route has suffered more on the day cancellations than any other part of the Avanti network, rising from 8.2% to 21.7% between April and June.

Virgin Group has applied to the Office of Rail and Road for an open access licence for the West Coast line.

Under this type of licence, a firm does not receive any state subsidies and takes on the risk of running a rail service itself.

In contrast, a franchised operator, such as Avanti, holds a contract with the government to run the route.

Virgin Group said that it has applied to run services between London Euston to Preston and Rochdale via Manchester and Bolton in the north west as well as to Birmingham, Liverpool and Glasgow.

But despite not having applied for such a license for the north Wales to London route, business leaders in the region are calling on the company to step in and expand its proposed offering.

North Wales Business Council’s chief executive, Ashley Rogers, said he is organising an emergency summit of the region’s politicians, company bosses and other stakeholders.

“The fact that more than a fifth of the trains are cancelled on the day is staggeringly bad," Mr Rogers said.

“It is totally unacceptable that north Wales is being cut off from reliable access to London on public transport because it is absolutely vital in terms of business, research and innovation and tourism.

“We desperately need other operators to come in and provide a reliable service to London for north Wales, filling the ever widening gaps in the current services from Avanti."

Among passengers at Bangor station on Wednesday, some were clear that change was needed.

Gareth Cowell said: "They're often cancelled, often late and with very little notice beforehand.

"Only two days ago a train from Chester to Holyhead was mysteriously cancelled with no explanation."

He added that he'd like to see new MP's, many of whom depend on the train services, to put pressure on the company.

Catrin Edwards, who was heading to London, said that Avanti trains had failed to turn up in the past.

"It's not great is it? They're a pain," she added.

"They aren't reliable and have been cancelled pretty often.

The newly elected MP for Bangor Aberconwy, Claire Hughes, suffered a disrupted first trip to Westminster as a result of an Avanti train cancellation.

Having turned up later than expected for Parliament's first sitting last Tuesday, following the general election, she told BBC Wales: "It wasn't entirely surprising to see that the Avanti train to London had been cancelled because I know services on the north Wales mainline have been very unreliable for quite some time now.

"It certainly wasn't the best start.

"But it comes up quite a lot, it's a real issue, we rely massively on the tourism sector here and people who work in London fairly regularly.

"Its not just frustration, in many cases its lost money too. We need a punctual and reliable service here."

The UK government's new transport secretary Louise Haigh said it was a "priority to hold industry bosses to account".

"I’ve called in the worst performing train operating companies – starting with Avanti West Coast – alongside Network Rail and demanded immediate action to raise standards."

The Welsh government said it was "looking forward to working in close partnership with the UK government to improve rail services for passengers across Wales".

A spokesperson for Avanti West Coast said it was "fully committed to serving north Wales" and "working hard to address the fundamental issues regarding performance as well as continuing to invest in a better service".

It added that performance on the north Wales route had been impacted by the additional training required to launch the new Evero fleet.

A Virgin spokesperson said the group was "extremely proud" of its time serving north Wales.

"It’s clear that the rail industry is ripe for change and we think Virgin is what’s needed to shake things up," they said.

"We’d like to thank the North Wales Business Council for its vote of confidence and we would welcome the opportunity to discuss what their community needs from us as we pursue our application to operate open access routes."