REGIONAL rail franchise operator Northern is under serious threat of losing its franchise in the near future, but a local rail user group has urged caution in making a judgement on the issue.

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps appeared to confirm in a TV interview last week that the under-fire operator would be stripped of its franchise due to poor performance.

And the news was immediately welcomed by Westmorland and Lonsdale MP Tim Farron, a long term critic of Northern, who urged Mr Shapps to act quickly after more passenger problems over the Christmas holiday period.

“This looks like a really big breakthrough in our long running campaign to ‘Sack Northern,’” said Mr Farron.

“Once again over the Christmas and New Year holidays, hundreds of passengers have been left stranded on stations across the South Lakes and the rest of the north of England because of Northern’s complete failure to actually run trains on a train line.

“Northern’s service has been completely inadequate with years of cancelled trains, shoddy services and pathetic excuses – to the point that we had to work together as a community and run our own services on two separate occasions over the past 18 months.

“Removing Northern’s franchise won’t come a moment too soon – I only wish this Conservative Government had realised the north’s train services were in chaos sooner.

“Now the minister must walk the walk – it’s time for Northern to go.”

However Robert Talbot, chair of the Lakes Line User Group which represents passengers on the Oxenholme to Windermere branch, said while it was clear Northern was experiencing severe problems, it was wiser to await the imminent publication of the William Report on UK rail operations before making a judgement.

Mr Talbot accepted Northern was under serious threat but pointed out that many of the problems affecting service were outside Northern’s control such as infrastructure issues and delays in equipment and rolling stock upgrades.

He also noted that rival franchise operator TransPennine Express had recently performed even worse than Northern by most indicators.

And Mr Talbot said if Northern did lose its franchise the alternatives, such as direct operation by the Department for Transport, could be problematic as those is charge had no local knowledge of the South Lakeland area.

“One thing that is certain is that the while situation is a complete mess and it’s going to take some sorting out,” he said.