North Wales Assembly Member Mark Isherwood has called for a Welsh Government Statement on the impact of winter weather on transport after it took him seven and a half hours to travel by train from North Wales to Cardiff on Monday.
Speaking in yesterday’s Business Statement, Mr Isherwood said there needs to be better planning to avoid such disruption in the future.
He said:
“Yesterday, along with thousands of others, it took me seven and a half hours, with multiple train changes, to travel from Wrexham to Cardiff. The staff, I have to say, on the train were fantastic, offering free coffee and goodness knows what else. They can't be responsible for snow and they can't be responsible for trees falling.
“There were signal failures as well, with trains going backwards as well as forwards. A Statement is needed in the context of understanding how this could have happened in the way it did; the extent to which it was beyond anybody's control; and the extent to which we can plan better should there be any further recurrence of this sort of temperature, snowfall and ice as the winter progresses.”
The Leader of the House, Julie James AM, replied: “I know the Cabinet Secretary himself experienced some considerable difficulty getting down from North Wales, as did a large number of other Members in the Chamber, and he's indicated his willingness to bring forward a Statement about what can be done in the terms the Member outlined - what couldn't have been avoided, what might be avoided in the future and so on.”