Sheffield City Region Mayor to press government on Northern Rail

The Sheffield City Region Mayor will urge the government to "get a grip" of the Northern Rail situation by taking "decisive urgent action" later.

Dan Jarvis is asking an urgent question to ministers about it in the House of Commons as Parliament returns from the Christmas recess today.

It comes after the Transport Secretary said last week he's taking steps to strip Northern of its francise after continued criticism of the service.

Dan told us he wants clarity on what the government's doing:

"There's been huge frustration about the services Northern has operated for a number of years now. People tell me far too often that the train services are delayed, they're crowded and frankly expensive as well. So we do need decisive urgent action from national government.

"Northern have very significantly unperformed in recent time. And what is now required is a plan from government about what's going to happen next. We need government to show some leadership and take a view about what is the best way of improving the experience of the travelling public here in South Yorkshire. They need to make a decision."

The rail company, which operates services across the North of England, has faced criticism for the reliability of its service and the delay of old 'pacer' trains being taken out of service.

Recently there were delays and cancellations when Northern launched a new timetable. The company insisted the problems were down to driver sickness, signalling failure and train faults - not the timetable changes.

Dan says the government hasn't acted fast enough to the complaints:

"I think the reaction has been slow. I think if the concerns had been expressed in other parts of the country we would have seen action sooner than we have here in the North of England.

"So we just need the government now to get a grip of the situation, let us know what's going to happen with regard to the francise and actually look at how they can invest in our transport infrastructure.

"I will put forward an urgent question to get the clarity, to get the detail from the government about precisely what it is they're going to do to improve the experience of the travelling public here in South Yorkshire."