NORTH Shropshire MP Owen Paterson has welcomed the decision by the Office of Rail Regulation not to approve the application by Arriva Trains Wales for new track access rights to operate a direct service between Aberystwyth and London Marylebone.
The ORR has said that the benefits to passengers of new direct service to London would be more that offset by abstraction of revenue from incumbent operators.
Mr Paterson says he is in favour of fair competition, but strongly believes it would not have been right for Arriva to go ahead with a rival operation backed by £1.6bn of public subsidy over 15 years.
The Wrexham & Shropshire service is operated without any subsidy from Wrexham and uses local staff. He says it offers direct connections to both North Shropshire and Wrexham at affordable fares and the service is excellent.
“Wrexham & Shropshire have demonstrated a genuine long-term commitment to serving my constituents, and I am delighted that the ORR have made this decision,” he said.
“I have long said that the Wrexham and Shropshire service should be given further time to bed in. By 2012, the moderation of competition restrictions in the West Coast franchise will allow any operator to use Wolverhampton, Birmingham New Street and Birmingham International; the improvements to the Chiltern line, under the Evergreen III upgrade should allow a 2½ hour service to Shrewsbury.
“This would allow Wrexham & Shropshire to compete on a level playing field with any other operators who wish to put on a service. It would have been wholly inappropriate for Arriva to be permitted to operate a spoiler service before these conditions were in place.”