North Wales Assembly Member Mark Isherwood questioned the First Minister yesterday over planned new train services for Wrexham.
Speaking in the Assembly Chamber, he said:
“Yesterday's Statement by the Economy and Transport Secretary ‘Update on the Procurement for the Wales and Borders Rail Service’ said that we will see a second limited-stop express service every hour on the Wrexham to Bidston line from 2021 and, from 2022, see services stopping at Wrexham as part of a new two-hourly Liverpool to Cardiff service.
“How, therefore, do you respond to the statement made to me yesterday by rail user groups in North-East Wales that the two trains allocated to the route could be running an earlier service into Wrexham at around 8.30am and operating a more frequent service over the line during the evenings and on Sundays, and that, provided that train crews can be sourced, this could be realised as early as December 2018 or the May 2019 timetable change?”
The First Minister confirmed that “these are all part of the discussions on timetabling” but stressed that “the intention as the Member has rightly said is to improve the service on the Wrexham to Bidston line and indeed, due to the Halton Curve, further than that, of course, to discuss with Merseyrail the possibility of using the Mersey tunnel as well in order for trains to be able go straight into Liverpool.
“Those discussions will take place in order to allow that to happen. It's a long-held ambition for trains from Wrexham Central to go into Liverpool, but, of course, the Wrexham to Bidston service is amongst one of the first candidates for improvement that people will see, and we want to see that line develop even further in the future.”