PM ePetition - Government response

[whole diary]

[gpn01]

Hi, there was an ePetition recently about FGW^▸ (First Great Western) performance:

"We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to Remove the First Great Western franchise."

Details of Petition:

"First Great Western operate the worst service on the UK^▸ (United Kingdom) rail network. Their services are overcrowded to such a level as to be dangerous to their passengers. They routinely refuse to provide alternative services as required under the conditions of carriage when faced with disruptions and delays. They have proven themselves unfit to operate a train service."

Just had an email response from "The Government":
On 26 February the Secretary of State for Transport, Ruth Kelly MP^▸ (Member of Parliament), said that the performance of First Great Western has fallen short of customers' expectations and had been unacceptable to both passengers and Government.

She announced that a Remedial Plan Notice had been issued to First Great Western in respect of unacceptable levels of cancellations. This requires First Great Western to submit to the Secretary of State a Remedial Plan, to bring the standard of services back to acceptable levels, and it will be contractualised as a Remedial Agreement. Material non-compliance with the Remedial Agreement would be a default of the franchise agreement, which could lead to the Government terminating First Great Western's franchise.

A ^29m package of benefits was also agreed with First Great Western to deliver improvements to passengers. It includes over 500,000 cheaper tickets on the busiest routes, extra carriages between Cardiff and Portsmouth and vastly increases investment in the refurbishment of Thames Valley commuter trains.

[dog box]

i getting pretty fed up of reading this now