Campaign for better rail links to conference town intensifies

Andrew Jones, Tory MP for Harrogate and Knaresborough, will hand over the document personally to Mr Hammond and tell him that improved transport links are vital to ensure the economic future of the town.

He said: "I want to get across to him the point that our economic growth is dependent on transport investment in this area.

"Transport links drive economic growth and not enough has been done here for years.

"Harrogate needs better rail links and we have been working on this campaign for a long time.

"There is a lot of investment that needs to be done on a local level and the line between Harrogate and York is very poor.

"But we also need to state our case on a national level and I will be arguing for several daily direct services to and from London every day. The case for this is very strong."

The dossier, overseen by the Harrogate Chamber of Trade and Commerce, has already been submitted to the Department for Transport in August – the first formal bid of its kind. It makes the business case for as many as 12 direct daily services to London and claims poor train connections are hampering business growth across the district.

Events at the Harrogate International Centre attract more than 200,000 business visitors every year, with about 40 per cent coming from London and the South-East, but currently only 18 per cent travel by train.

Unless action is taken it is feared the conference industry, a cornerstone of Harrogate's economy which pumped 92m into the spa town in the past six months alone, could lose events as organisers look elsewhere because of travel difficulties.

The tourist industry is also vital to the district with visitors spending 331m every year. There are more than 1,750 rooms in hotels and guest houses in Harrogate alone – far outweighing the numbers in similar towns that already have direct London rail services.

Brian Dunsby, chief executive of the Harrogate Chamber of Trade and Commerce, said: "I am delighted that the Transport Secretary is going to be made personally aware of the work that needs to be done in Harrogate.

"An awful lot of work has gone into compiling the data to prove the case, but we are only too aware that we need to make sure that any additional services are used if they are introduced.

"Harrogate's circumstances are in many ways unique, as we have such a large number of visitors for both business and leisure, and we do believe that the improvements to rail services are long overdue."

Currently, passengers wanting to travel to London have a single direct service to King's Cross each day – leaving Harrogate at 7.28am on a journey taking almost three hours.

The only alternative is connecting services to either York or Leeds and changing there.

There is only an hourly service between Harrogate and York at peak times – and fewer trains at other times.

The rolling stock is criticised as being outdated while there is single track for large sections of the route means trains rely on manual signalling that has changed little since the Victorian age.

The route between Edinburgh and London via Yorkshire is now effectively under state control after a public sector company, East Coast, took over from the troubled franchise National Express in November last year.

It is hoped the Department for Transport's franchise sponsor, Geoff Appleby, will ensure a clause it written into any future franchise agreement to increase direct services between Harrogate and the capital when the East Coast Mainline is passed back into private hands in 2012.