Metro boss sorry for ‘confused’ cuts explanation

ATYNE and Wear Metro boss has apologised after the passengers were misled by a “confused” explanation for slashing train timetables.

It was announced last week that extra services that ran on the Tyne and Wear network at peak times were being axed, with the change described by operator Nexus as “a response to the traditional rush hours not being as busy as they were prior to the Covid-19 pandemic”. But the Local Democracy Reporting Service revealed on Tuesday that the true reason behind the cutbacks was actually a lack of working trains, after obtaining a leaked email.

The Metro’s ageing fleet has been running for more than 40 years and has become increasingly unreliable of late, particularly in the recent cold snap, and there are concerns about how the outdated carriages will fare until they can all be replaced by a long-awaited new fleet, with 46 new trains arriving by 2025.

Asked to explain why Metro customers were not given the full truth of the situation last week, Nexus customer services director Huw Lewis told councillors on Thursday that it was “an error I take responsibility for”.

He admitted to a North East Joint Transport Committee scrutiny panel: “We got confused on what we were trying to say. We have been open with our customers since January that we did not have enough trains to operate a service - people could see that on our website and from our messages on social media.”

Mr Lewis added: “In that messaging, we got confused between saying this will not impact the customer as much as it might have and it coming across as though that was the reason we made the decision... but I’m sorry that was the case and I hope we have put the record straight this week.”

Newcastle Lib Dem councillor Thom Campion told Mr Lewis that “people across Tyne and Wear are paying for a service and they deserve to have full transparency”. Criticising the Metro’s current “crumbling” state, which he blamed on a lack of scrutiny of Labour councillors’ decisions, Coun Campion added: “That is not acceptable and passengers deserve better.”

Metro passengers have been faced with something of a perfect storm over recent months - with regular disruption caused by extreme weather, train breakdowns, rail strikes, line closures for major maintenance works, and a fire at a substation in Sunderland.

Mr Lewis said that Metro was in a “place of transition” from the struggling old trains to a £362m fleet that would be “one of the newest and best in the country”.

He added that Stadler, which is building the new trains in Switzerland and is now responsible for maintenance at Metro’s depot, was finding it hard to manage both new and old carriages at the newly-rebuilt site in Gosforth - but that was a “short-term issue”.

Mr Lewis insisted that the cutting of the peak services from Pelaw to Monkseaton will benefit passengers in the long term because it will give Stadler more time to fix up trains before sending them out, making them less likely to fail.

He added: “We do have a plan. There is more than half a billion pounds being spent on that plan and we are going through the stages of that to get to what you want to see and what we want to see from the Metro’s performance.”