News of the return of Southport's Manchester Piccadilly service has been warmly greeted by Labour's Parliamentary Candidate for the town, Liz Savage.

The service is due to run again from December after huge pressure from the Ormskirk, Preston and Southport Travellers' Association (OPSTA) and Labour campaigners.


OPSTA has revealed that a deal has been struck with rail company Northern which will see trains to Piccadilly restored, while also keeping those to Manchester Victoria.


The plan is that a twice hourly service east will alternate between the two routes, creating an hourly service to each destination.


Labour's Liz Savage says that although not ideal, the scheme is the most practical compromise currently possible and huge credit should go to those who have campaigned hard to bring pressure to bear on the company:


"OPSTA and Labour MPs Lisa Nandy, Rosie Cooper and Yvonne Fovargue have done Southport commuters proud, as have others deeply involved such as Labour's Cllr Gordon Friel and Cllr Liam Robinson, Chair of the Combined Authority Transport Committee."


"They've worked tirelessly to keep the pressure up on Northern and I'm delighted that the company has responded positively."


"We saw the true measure of Tory rail management with this problem, with FOI's revealing how the Department of Transport had actively conspired to deliberately lie to Southport commuters over the cutting of this service."


"Then, when that was revealed in the House of Commons, we saw how Southport's Tory MP chose to leap to the defence of the former rail minister, Chris Grayling, instead of his own constituents and Southport commuters."


"Now, thanks to OPSTA, Labour campaigners, and the public backlash, the link to Piccadilly has been restored. What we need next is for Northern to look at its levels of provision and give us a service eastwards that will match the widely praised Merseytravel system that runs to the south

Well Done OPSTA! With any luck, Southport - without a direct motorway connection- may even get the old railway links re-opened, just as Damien Moore has suggested.

Originally Posted by said

Well Done OPSTA! With any luck, Southport - without a direct motorway connection- may even get the old railway links re-opened, just as Damien Moore has suggested.

Poor attempt to deflect attention from the fact that Moore has been virtually invisible on this... and how when he had a chance to stand up for Southport constituents, he instead defended Grayling - very shabby work from him. While Labour MPs and councillors & OPSTA have worked hard to restore the service.

Would be interesting to know what exactly Labour has done and how they have any influence as their ignored on most things.

Still latching on to any announcement to try and gain brownie points is practised by all political parties.

Originally Posted by local

Would be interesting to know what exactly Labour has done and how they have any influence as their ignored on most things.

Still latching on to any announcement to try and gain brownie points is practised by all political parties.

Given that the three Labour MPs mentioned are all in constituencies affected by Northern's Tory backed mess, and that the two Labour councillors mentioned are the Chair of the Combined Authority Transport Committee and the Vice Chair and lead member for rail... and all were praised by the local transport group OPSTA for their work on this... I'd suggest you're just sucking on lemons.

Originally Posted by gnalist

Given that the three Labour MPs mentioned are all in constituencies affected by Northern's Tory backed mess, and that the two Labour councillors mentioned are the Chair of the Combined Authority Transport Committee and the Vice Chair and lead member for rail... and all were praised by the local transport group OPSTA for their work on this... I'd suggest you're just sucking on lemons.

Great whine but that still doesn't tell anyone what Labour has actually done rather than hitch its wagon to.

REALITY, if it's not viable then
Good bye .Stop subsidising .
Don't feed us sad luck stories.

The photograph of this gathering on the other site is comedy gold.