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02 March 2010
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 than offset by abstraction of revenue from incumbent operators. Whilst Owen is in favour of fair competition, he strongly believes that 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. It offers direct connections to both North Shropshire and Wrexham at affordable fares; the service is excellent. Above all, Wrexham & Shropshire have demonstrated a genuine long-term commitment to serving Owen’s constituents. Owen said “I am delighted that the ORR have made this decision. 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.”
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