Jun 21, 2008 0
Liberal Democrats welcome upcoming public meeting with First Great Western
A public meeting will be held on 3 July in the Town Hall which will give Reading people and councillors the chance to discuss rail services with bosses of First Great Western (Reading Borough Council press release of 20 June refers).
Cllr Ricky Duveen, the Lib Dem transport spokesperson on Reading Borough Council remarked:
“We look forward to this meeting, which is the result of a Lib Dem motion to Council earlier this year. Residents have shared their worries with us about poor service and high fares on the railways. They will now get the chance to put these concerns directly to First Great Western bosses.”
Editors Notes
- The public meeting will be on Thursday 3 July at 7pm and will be held in the Victoria Hall, at the Town Hall in Reading. Following the event, Reading Borough Council’s Corporate, Community and External Affairs Scrutiny Panel will examine the issues that are raised and make recommendations for improvements.
- The motion to Council on February 19th 2008 that was moved by Cllr Ricky Duveen and which received all-party support read:
“This Council believes that First Great Western’s performance in running the commuter route to London is well below par and that its fares are overpriced.
This Council recognises the bottleneck that is Reading Station and is 100% behind the rebuilding project but also recognises that thousands of commuters should not have to wait till this project is completed before receiving a fair deal.
This Council notes that:
a) the 9.5% increase in fares from Reading to London in January 2008 took the cost per mile of commuting to 38p, twice the cost of the cheapest routes in to London and even the cheap routes are hugely expensive compared to rail travel in Europe;
b) First Great Western also run the most overcrowded trains into London, running at 8.2% over capacity in 2006 the last year for which we have records);
c) First Great Western has a very poor record of customer satisfaction, despite the £200m of investment, slumping further in last year’s National Passenger Survey to a customer satisfaction rating of only 74%, against 90% plus for the best companies;
d) First Group made an annual profit of £108.8 million on its rail services in 2006 (up 36.7%) and increased its overall revenue from all operations to £3.7 billion (up 22.4%).In view of the above, this Council proposes:
a) to direct the Chief Executive to write to the Chairman and Managing Director of First Great Western expressing the Council’s dismay at the poor service and overpriced fares and asking what improvements can be expected following the disastrous year of 2007 and
b) to organise a public meeting in Reading and invite First Great Western to meet the long-suffering commuters face to face.”
