At last Thursday’s Sefton Council I again tried to push Merseytravel to publish the background papers and evidence they used when they made their highly surprising policy ‘U” turn earlier this year on vertical integration of our local Merseyrail network.

Whilst this can be perceived as a complex issue it is all rather straight forward. For years rail experts have been saying that splitting the operator and infrastructure parts of the railways up has led to greater costs and therefore higher ticket prices. They also say that we could run our railways better if the two were joined back up. Most folks who have looked at this, probably with the exception of die hard Conservative privatisers, have agreed that the two parts need joining back up. So a campaign started during the last Labour Government to push them into doing this. By the time the wheels of Whitehall had final got around to it the Government had changed but fortunately the Coalition Government was in agreement. A couple of pilot areas were agreed, one being Merseyside’s Merseyrail network, to see if it could be made to work, what the savings would be etc. All well and good, as Merseytravel had long wanted to be such a case study. However, Labour run Merseytravel then backed out, as I have posted before, for reasons they are far from keen to talk about.

My motion to Sefton Council, where Labour’s Merseytravel Chairman is also a Sefton Councillor, was designed to try to flush out the facts behind the ‘run for hills’ so to speak. I got nowhere as Labour just don’t want to publish the papers, evidence etc. Yes, they said they were confident that they had made the right decision, indeed they have previously indicated to me and repeated it on Thursday evening that they think the pilot study would have cost money rather then saving it! Are they right? Frankly, I have no idea and that’s why I want to see whatever they saw that made them do their swift about turn. However, it looks like the only papers anyone is going to see about this matter will have to be dragged out of Merseytravel via Freedom of Information requests. Why? Is this the way an accountable public body spending public money should behave? 

I am sorry to say that Merseytravel still acts as though it does not have to account for its actions or be subjected to scrutiny. Is there any wonder it has found itself in conflict with the 5 District Councils that make up Merseyside over issues like this, the infamous Merseytram project etc.