The Advertiser asked people in Newark what they think of renationalisation of railways following this week’s King’s Speech
In its weekly voxpop, the Advertiser found out people’s opinions on the renationalisation of railway services.
The King’s Speech at the state opening of parliament on Wednesday (July 17) set out the newly-elected Labour government’s top priorities, including renationalisation of the railways.
Labour will renationalise rail with two separate bills — one addressing how to take services in public ownership and another to set up a dedicated public body — Great British Railways.
The government said transferring operations to the public sector would save taxpayers millions of pounds and establish a more efficient and reliable service. But do members of the public think this will work? In Newark, it seems, there’s strong support for the idea…
Tim White said: “I think it is a good thing because right now all the service that you get is unreliable, expensive and drives me off trains.
“My train yesterday got cancelled so I ended up having to drive to work which I don’t want to do because it costs me more for parking, so I am in favour of anything that improves it.”
Debbie White added: “I agree, the number of times I have been down to London and only been able to get halfway home into Lincoln… and as a woman on their own it is a bit of a worry, so I think it is a good idea.”
Deborah Ollier said: “It is better for people. The way they are running it at the moment is not brilliant, is it?
“My deceased husband worked on railways and he got implicated with all the strikes and that which wasn’t easy for him so I think it would be better if we could have it run properly.”
Maxine Husselbee said: “I don’t use the railways an awful lot and privatisation I am not in favour of at all. However, I do feel that a lot of the trains are overcrowded and often cancelled at the last minute.
“We went to see Taylor Swift in Edinburgh from Newark a month ago and they cancelled the return journey, so we had twice as many people on one train and we were sitting on the floor for three hours.
“Anything that can help with customer service and the experience of people that are buying really expensive rail tickets and often not getting what they paid for, and that is just one example as trains are cancelled every day.
“It’s not reliable to if that makes it better I am all in favour because we do need improvements.”
Anne Lupson said: “I think it is time to do something to change the railways because obviously it isn’t working so this is the next step.”
Patricia Lamb said: “Nationalisation might be better because we need the railway service to be run better.”
Rachel Armitage said: “Anything that is going to give us cheaper trains is obviously good, better transport is always a good thing. If they are trying to get use not to use cars more then it’s always good.”
Paul Hancock said: “If they are making the tickets cheaper and more accessible for disabled people that would be great.
“A lot of disabled people have to get the ticket from the machine but a lot of them can’t do that and there is a need for more support there.”
Ron Swannell said: “If we can make the trains cheaper and more efficient then anything can only be a good thing.
“If there is a wider question around nationalisation outside of that then I think it needs more consideration.”
John Wright said: “I think nationalising the railways is an excellent idea, bring them under public control will prevent the kind of thing that a lot of train operators do now, which is making money handover efficient and not always delivering a great service.
“So having it under a nationalised scheme will remove some of those barriers and give some better service to passengers.”
What do you think? Tell us your views in the comments below…
