Four out of ten still wary of public transport, says survey

FOUR out of ten people say they won’t use public transport again until they feel safe, according to a new survey carried out by Transport Focus. The latest survey of 2,000 respondents found that the number of people happy to use transport as soon as restrictions are lifted has gone down from 24 per cent earlier this year to 18 per cent now. Transport Focus said there had been no ‘significant increase’ in the number of public transport passengers in spite of the easing of the travel to work rules from 18 May.

Grand Central to stay off the rails for now

OPEN ACCESS operator Grand Central has said it will not be restoring any services until July at the earliest. Grand Central suspended its timetable from 4 April after talks with the Department for Transport had failed to reach an agreement. Hull Trains had already withdrawn its services at the end of March, also because of the lockdown restrictions on travel. Grand Central managing director Richard McClean said: ‘I think over the coming month we’ll get a really informative picture of passenger attitude, Government intentions and how the industry is dealing with social distancing but for now the most sensible course of action for us is to monitor all this and use the time to plan our return.’

Planning permission for ‘largest new station’

HS2 Ltd has gained planning consent to build the major interchange at Old Oak Common in west London. The station will have 14 platforms, including six for high speed trains, within a station box 850m in length. It is said to be the largest station ever to be built from a standing start in this country,

Camp Hill line set to gain third station

PLANS to build a station at Moseley on the Camp Hill line in Birmingham have been submitted. If approved, Moseley will be the third station on the restored route, where Birmingham City Council has already given the go-ahead to stations at Kings Heath and Hazelwell. The line was closed to passengers as a ‘wartime economy’ in January 1941, but the withdrawal was confirmed in November 1946.