Transportinfo.org.uk - today's transport news in the uk, hand picked for you each morning

Thursday, 20 January 2022

BBC News

• Sadiq Khan: Masks to remain on London transport despite end of Plan BMask-wearing will remain a condition of carriage although not doing so will no longer be an offence.

The Independent

• Rail companies welcome return to the office after commuting slump‘Taking the train is crucial to a green economic recovery for our towns and cities’ – Rail Delivery Group

Times Online

• Go-Ahead director Adrian Ewer leaves after voting chaos [subscription]Shareholders unhappy with the performance of Adrian Ewer, the company’s senior independent director, had already expressed their dissatisfaction at the company’s recent annual meeting, when investors speaking for 5.5 million shares, or 46.4 per cent of the votes cast, were registered against Ewer’s re-election.

Birmingham Post

• Northumberland firm Universal Wolf appoints former rail chief as new MDTim Rutter joins the Blyth firm after having been plant manager at Hitachi Rail's plant in Newton Aycliffe
• Director at crisis-hit Go-Ahead steps down after vote to re-elect him was counted wronglyThe vote against Adrian Ewer came as the company tries to deal with the crisis surrounding its LSER rail franchise

Manchester Evening News

• Huge concrete viaducts 'to blight east Manchester' in cut-price Piccadilly rail plans Government wants to build a high-speed station at Piccadilly above ground to save money. But local leaders say that would mean ‘severing’ communities, cost thousands of potential new jobs and would be incapable of expanding in the future

The York Press

• LNER sets sights on international visitors after 'extraordinary' recoveryDAY trippers and holiday-makers were the driving force behind a York-based rail company's revenue recovery in 2021.

Yorkshire Post

• Grant Shapps rebuke of mayors over Northern Powerhouse Rail betrayal is misguided – The Yorkshire Post saysGRANT Shapps appears to misunderstand the status and role of metro mayors after crassly condemning criticism of the Integrated Rail Plan as ‘irrational’.
• Why Integrated Rail Plan criticism by mayors is ‘irrational’ - Grant ShappsPeople hold passionate views about how train services can be managed and improved, and I welcome all opinions, as long as they are informed and constructive.
• Exclusive: Grant Shapps brands mayors ‘irrational’ over criticism of £96bn Integrated Rail Plan and Northern Powerhouse Rail downgradeMETRO mayors and other critics of the £96bn Integrated Rail Plan have today been branded ‘irrational’ by the Transport Secretary.
• Tory grandee Patrick McLoughlin to become new Transport for the North chairmanLord McLoughlin is a former transport secretary and Conservative party chairman who was made a peer after stepping down as MP for the Derbyshire Dales in 2019. He is also currently chair of lobbying body Airlines UK.

New Civil Engineer

• TfL faces “big financial challenges” with reliance on Council Tax fundingTransport for London (TfL) is becoming "increasingly reliant on Council Tax funding" and faces "big financial challenges" as a result of the pandemic, a key report has warned.
• Mayor accuses Shapps of tantrum over northern rail plan criticismSouth Yorkshire mayor Dan Jarvis has escalated a war of words with Grant Shapps after the transport secretary branded him “irrational” over his criticism of the controversial Integrated Rail Plan (IRP). Jarvis compared Shapps to a toddler having a tantrum following the minister’s column in the Yorkshire Post on Wednesday, which castigated northern leaders for “irrational” and “spectacularly wrong” opinions.

Railway Gazette

• West Midlands transport investment priorities agreedUK: The West Midlands Combined Authority board agreed a ‘wide-ranging’ list of more than 50 preferred schemes to improve rail, tram, bus, road, cycling and walking routes on January 14.