On 12 June, I received the following response from Judith Shepherd of the DfT to my letter concerning the lack of services on the TransWilts (Salisbury – Westbury – Chippenham – Swindon) line. I was reliably informed that a large amount of the text of the letter was copied from DfT responses sent to concerned rail users last year before the actual cuts had been announced in the December 2006 timetable! It therefore, in large part, ignored the essence of my letter (for the desperate need for much better public transport links across Wiltshire), and did not even manage to respond with the most up-to-date standard statements on the issue. Graham Ellis of the Save the Train campaign has responded in detail to Ms Shepherd pointing out where the errors lie (take either sense of the word). We await a response.
12 June 2007
Dear Ms Goskar,
Thank you for your e-mail of 14 May to the Minister for rail, about First Great Western (FGW) train services on the Salisbury and Melksham lines. I have been asked to reply.
The Department for Transport specifies a Service Level Commitment (SLC) for a franchise, laying down, among other things, a minimum number of trains on each route, along with early and late services, maximum permissible intervals between trains, maximum journey times, and minimum calling patterns. Provided that it meets the requirements of the SLC, the franchisee may vary train times and amend calling patterns. It may also operate additional services, provided that the track capacity is available, and there is no adverse effect on other rail franchises’ subsidies or premiums.
In 2005 the Strategic Rail Authority (‘SRA’) conducted a public consultation on the structure of train services for the new Greater Western franchise, in which it proposed to reduce the number of calls at Melksham station from five to two per day in each direction, concentrated during the peak hours. The SRA received eight responses about the proposed reduction in services to Melksham. Seven were against the proposals and one in support of them.
While public consultation on the franchise specification was indeed concurrent with the bidding process, the consultation document made it clear that the SRA (and its successor in this function, the Department for Transport) was willing to revise the specification in the light of consultation responses, where there was a financial and economic case for doing so. A number of amendments of this nature were made.
However, given the wide range of other calls on public funds, the Department had to take a view on where the best value for money could be achieved. The services from Melksham are on average lightly used during most of the day and require significant subsidy. In view of this and in the light of the response to the SRA’s consultation exercise, ministers decided to let the Greater Western franchise on the basis of specifying two trains per day in each direction, including on Saturday and Sunday.
The train service specification in the new contract allows the future train operating company some flexibility in liaison with the Department for Transport and industry partners, and in consultation with stakeholders, to decide when exactly trains should run and whether they should stop at certain stations. However, the train operator has only limited flexibility within its contract and, given ministers’ initial decision about the value for money of this service, I should not like to raise false expectations about the likelihood of a significant change in the number of trains operated.
Yours sincerely,
Judith Shepherd
Rail & National Networks Ministerial Liaison Team
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