Northern Leaders call for urgent action after weeks of travel chaos

Northern Leaders are demanding the Transport Secretary take urgent action, after weeks of delays, overcrowding and cancellations on trains across the North.

Services to Blackpool and Preston have been some of the worst affected, following the introduction of a new timetable two weeks ago.

On Wednesday, St. Helen's MP Marie Rimmer demanded Northern Rail be stripped of its licence:

"I've got one constituent who's already lost his job, he was paying £100 per day, sometimes £80 or £90 just to get to and from work and he was then dismissed for his timekeeping. It's absolutely appalling.

"They're not in compliance with their contract. They do not have enough employees to deliver the service they are contracted to deliver."

Well, now Northern Leaders are pushing the Transport Secretary, Chris Grayling, to do more to help them.

Andy Burnham said:

"It's frankly unbelievable that services have got even worse over the last seven days. The travelling furious must be absolutely furious, it's like they're only providing services when they can be bothered. It's just not acceptable and the disruption is just at a level that's way beyond what can be tolerated.

"We can't just sit back and accept this. We gave them time - I met Northern last week and said if things improve we'll take things step by step and here we are seven days later and things have gotten worse. So, they've well and truly lost the benefit of the doubt. Unless they do things to improve immediately the calls for them to lose the franchise will only get louder."