Redlands Liberal Democrats: First Great Western Public Meeting

As luck would have it I was struck down with laryngitis yesterday, just in time for the public meeting I helped organise on FGW, so, as it was I wasn't able to give voice to my ongoing frustration with FGW's substandard London-Reading train service quite as much as I would have liked. Luckily there was a microphone at the meeting!

The presentation given by Andrew Haines, Chief Operating Officer, was pretty much as expected, with lots about 'jam tomorrow' i.e. things are improving and in ten years things will be much better. Like many people who spoke at the meeting, I spend my life hoping I won't have to use these trains every day for the next decade at the current level of service.

Needless to say there was some very good questions put to Mr Haines by regular commuters about stuff all of us are very familiar with: overcrowding, over-priced tickets and lack of reliability. The general message Mr Haines was getting was:

"The current service you are providing is not value for money compared to other train services into London"

I made the point that at present FGW is more accountable to its shareholders than the 6,000+ people who travel from Reading to London daily on its trains and that this was the reason the Lib Dems in Reading tabled a motion to Council in the first place: as an attempt to bridge the accountability gap.

I also said that, as a season ticket holder, I did not find being offered off peak perks made up for the constant delays etc we have to put up with. I may be in a minority on this one but how often am I likely to want to go to Cornwall for a day trip (for £10)? Give me a guaranteed 25 minute journey into London every day and you can keep your cream teas!

Myself and a number of others present pressed Mr Haines to return to Reading in the near future to update us about service improvements, and to listen once again to people who use his trains.

It is likely another meeting will be held in a year (I would have preferred 6 months, but anyway).

Afterwards I met the local blogger behind Reading Roars who has written up a good account of the meeting here.

Overall, the turnout at the meeting was slightly disappointing: something we can learn from if we hold future meetings.

I was also surprised and disappointed that none of the Labour Councillors present (including the Lead Member for Transport), bothered to put a single question to Mr Haines on any issues relating to the quality of his train service.

It was also notable that our local MP and Labour's prospective parliamentary candidate for Reading East failed even to turn up to the meeting to listen to commuters' concerns.

This is sad when you think of what a massive issue the current poor train service is to people you talk to who live in Reading and says a lot of local 'representative' democracy in the town. As a councillor I think it is vitally important that the borough Council debates issues that are relevent to local people.

Rest assured that the Lib Dems will continue to keep the pressure on FGW to improve it's Reading services, as well as doing all we can to ensure that the views of Reading's travelling public continue to be heard.