A parish council has called on rail bosses to improve services at a village train station.
Burton Joyce Parish Council says services must be now be improved as the line which serves the station celebrates its 175th anniversary.
Burton Joyce is the largest village on the historic Nottingham-Lincoln Line but only eight trains a day stop at the station, while Lowdahm, which is the next stop on the line, gets seventeen stopping each way – including a service to London.
The station has been further impacted by cuts to services introduced after East Midilands Railway (EMR) who hold the franchise for the line, introduced an emergency timetable in a bid to insure services were running on time.
Chair of the Parish Council Paul Hyde said “There is an urgent need to provide regular services throughout the day for our community.
“Post Covid, villages such as ours desperately need a timetable that provides connectivity for people, promotes use of public transport to assist the environment, reduce vehicle use and congestion”.
He adds “Consideration of a new permanent timetable must include more of the trains that actually pass through the village stopping here, for the social, leisure and economic wellbeing that brings.
The Council congratulate the longevity and success of the original line, but believe it isn’t all good news for the communities it serves. It is vital for Nottingham that the surrounding communities have flexible access to and from the city, as well as wider connections, to maximise overall public benefit.
“We will be seeking the support of local MP Tom Randall and looking to join with other councils and community groups to seek changes to rail services that cater for the needs of village residents, and that levels up service provision for small as well as large communities.”
East Midlands Railway released a statement following the introduction of the emergency timetable back in June.
They said: “It has become apparent that our timetable has not performed as expected resulting in short notice cancellations. We are sorry that we have not performed as we, or our customers, expect.
“Everyone at EMR is immensely disappointed but we have introduced a dedicated team to fix these issues and reinstate these services as swiftly as possible. We are working to understand the detailed reasons behind those areas which are not working well.
While we fix these issues, we must introduce a reduced timetable until further notice. This will allow us to protect key services and routes such as those to Skegness – as well as ensuring we have sufficient capacity across the network.
“We will still run 85% of our normal timetable, which equates to over 460- trains per day. This reduction will help to reduce short notice cancellations and short forming which we know are immensely frustrating for our customers.”
Trains and trams to arnold should be the priority in my humble opinion as its where the shops are the council is and we are getting a new market and also offices. The place to be. It is Gedlings capital and so our london and we should respect it as such
Don’t be ridiculous. Are you suggesting building a railway line to Arnold just to satisfy your weird theory that it’s our capital??