Trains too risky for south Cumbrian businesses - GSK

Pat McIver, biopharm site lead at the Ulverston site, made the claim at a meeting of the Cumbria Better Connected group last week.

The company are in the process of selling their site and hold reservations about marketing the railways.

Mr McIver said: "We need to be in a position to market the area. We announced recently that we are looking at selling our plant and we are marketing it to new people and potential buyers.

"They will be thinking about how they can make it work here and right now I am thinking about whether we signpost the line as part of the package.

"I'm concerned about how we deal with the fact that it is not a good experience right now.

"I am reluctant to even give it a mention. It's a shame because they also miss the fantastic scenery you get along the line and that is important too."

Mr McIver said the company had already looked to other means of transport for their business.

He said: "We employ 350 people here in Ulverston and quite a number of people day to day come and go to our other locations around the UK.

"Over the last few years we have seen a very significant move away from using the line.

"We've stopped advising people to use the line because we can't take the risk that people don't get to where they need to be. These are people who make a number of journeys a week."

Sharon Keith, regional director of Northern, responded to the concerns at the meeting on Friday. She said: "Sitting back and doing nothing is not an option. We need to be able to look at how we can market Cumbria.

"It is fundamentally important to get this right and we will put every effort in to move this forward."

Northern slammed after leaving youngsters 'stranded'

COUNCILLORS have slammed Northern following another week of delays.

A number of cancellations and missed stations wreaked havoc for commuters last week, as signal failures and crew shortages caused problems.

Barrow Borough councillor Brendan Sweeney said: "These cancellations are leaving youngsters trying to get to and from school stranded on the platform.

"Some of them won't have an adult on hand to collect them because they're relying on the trains. The whole thing just doesn't feel good."

Cllr Anne Burns, of Cumbria County Council and Barrow Borough Council, said: "We want more people off the roads and onto trains.

"It is ludicrous to think people will keep travelling by trains if they might be cancelled.

"It wouldn't happen in the Midlands or Manchester."

Ms Keith accepted the cancellations causes big problems for commuters.

She said: "This is not our worst performing line, that's Liverpool. The big difference is the people of Liverpool have other networks to support it and get around.

"It is fundamentally important we get this right because there is no supporting network here.

"These big problems are caused when all the holes in the cheese line up at once and that is how we have got here.

"We have to make strategic decisions to get the time back to try and restore timetabled services, and we try to link it with school finishing times.

"We recognise that unless we fix the rolling stock we can't do a marketing campaign to attract people back to trains. It's not right unless we can keep our promise on it. We need to work with everyone in this room to re-engage people in the railway."

Weekend woe for commuters

MANY commuters faced lengthy delays of over an hour after signalling problems at St Bees at the weekend.

The problems caused disruption to almost all services between Barrow and Carlisle throughout Friday.

Many services did not stop at scheduled stations in an attempt to recover time. The signalling problems continued on Saturday.

Friday's 14.41 Barrow to Preston train was cancelled on Friday night due to a member of crew being unavailable, while Sunday's 10.23 service to Manchester Airport was terminated at Preston for the same reason.

A number of Saturday services from Carlisle to Barrow were started from Workington due to train faults.