Parties must push to transfer rail responsibilities to Wales

FROM this week political parties begin in earnest their attempt to win your votes in the Senedd election in May.

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A Transport for Wales train at Cardiff Central Station. The evidence to date shows little concern for travellers in Wales from Conservative or Labour UK Government ministers, says Prof Stuart Cole

This column suggests that the three key rail transport policies in their manifestos should be:

■Integrated passenger transport as a keystone element delivering easy travel linked to wellbeing and environmental proposals;

Adequate funding for capital and revenue support requirements and inter-government relationships; and

■Great British Railways and Wales (GBR).

The first enables a “hub and spoke” network to provide increased geographical coverage and higher service frequency at lower fares, with guaranteed interchange between train, bus, active travel and car (via park-and-ride) routes.

This discussion in Wales can be traced to the House of Commons Welsh Affairs Committee Public Transport in Wales report (1985), to which this columnist was the adviser.

Over the subsequent 40 years, discussions between government ministers, officials, Transport for Wales (TfW), myself and others led to these policies taking hold in Cathays Park, slowly at first but with increased vigour in more recent years.

Despite this trend, many rail transport plans have not been implemented because of insufficient funding from HM Treasury and Whitehall’s Department for Transport (DfT).