ONE of the great assets of Skipton has always been its good train connections to Leeds and Bradford and the places in between. With trains every 15 minutes or so waiting has rarely been a problem.

Not any more. The service to Bradford has just been slashed in half leaving people waiting up to an hour if they miss a train.

Just at the moment there is a serious need to cut fuel bills and reduce the amount of money we send to horrible regimes that don’t share our values. There is also a real urgency about the need to reduce the environmental damage of fossil fuels before they destabilise our climate much more radically. Encouraging more people to cut down on car journeys and use public transport is one of the best ways to do this. Cutting the regularity of the train service isn’t.

There have been many promises of levelling up and much talk of a northern powerhouse. The reality seems to be levelling down and continued neglect.

 

Councillor Andy Brown

Green Party

Cononley

In response, a spokesperson for Northern said: “We fully understand the concerns of those using our trains in Yorkshire and we are doing all we can to provide the best possible service for our customers who are very much at the heart of everything we do.”

“We’re seeing fewer commuters travelling each day, and people travelling at different times of the week and for different reasons. We’ve made decisions about our timetables based on the levels of resource we have available and prioritising the routes with the highest customer demand, and which support the region’s economic growth.

"The timetables currently in place will broadly continue with some amendments from May 2022 and into the Summer."