A transport partnership in the North of England has called for a critical review into the level of service provided by train operating company (TOC) Avanti West Coast.

Transport for the North (TfN) has written to the Transport Secretary asking for him to instruct officials to conduct the review. The body says that Avanti, which provides services from London Euston to Scotland as well as to Liverpool, Manchester and Birmingham, is providing a deteriorating service. They also reiterated a call made last week that first class and standard premium in Avanti trains should be declassified until the company’s performance levels return to an acceptable level.

According to the latest industry figures, in the last eight days across all Avanti services, punctuality and reliability (PPM) stands at 46.3%. Trains cancelled or severely delayed (CaSL) stands at 31.8%.  These figures are based on a service which has already been reduced, following an announcement by the operator that a number of services would be cut between Saturday 9 and Sunday 31 December.

Mayor Andy Burnham, Chair of the Rail North Committee, said: “This torrent of cancellations and delays on Avanti services is simply unacceptable. This is one of the most important times of the year for many families and businesses, all of whom are being let down by this deteriorating rail service without an end in sight.

“This cannot be allowed to continue. That is why we have written to the government to ask for them to conduct a critical review of Avanti as a matter of priority. Given the critical importance of this service at this time of year, it is also vital that all seats on Avanti West Coast services are made available for use by declassifying all first class accommodation until an acceptable service can be restored.”

An Avanti West Coast spokesperson said: “Declassifying our trains will not solve the current challenges we are seeing on our network. Our Train Managers already have the discretion to declassify our services if they are busy due to disruption, and have done so several times recently.

“As well as disruption, we have been seeing some short-notice cancellations on our network and would like to apologise to our customers for the inconvenience caused as we know this is not good enough.  These service changes are a result of resourcing challenges where we have seen a shortage of train crew due to historic leave agreements.  We are working hard to make sure we can minimise these cancellations.”