More misery on the trains

It may be a recurring theme – but it is the only conclusion that can be drawn from today's National Audit Office report into transport spending.

The figures speak for themselves.

The last Government's plans saw extra rolling stock allocated to the capital to accommodate 99,000 travellers. Yet every other English region – Yorkshire included – had to make do with additional capacity for 25,500 passengers, even though rush-hour over-crowding in Leeds, Sheffield and other Northern cities remains comparable to London.

The disparity in spending, and the Department for Transport's inherent bias towards the South-East, does not end here.

Financial issues mean that the Government, and rail companies, could finance 15 per cent fewer trains than intended in the capital. Yet this number rose to 33 per cent outside London – further evidence of a two-tier transport policy that is proving so damaging to the wider economy.

The timing of this report means that the coalition Government can blame – with justification – its Labour predecessors, and Network Rail, for poor planning and ineffective spending controls.

The challenge for Ministers is to remedy this imbalance when there are already suggestions that additional rolling stock will be one of the first casualties of the 6bn of spending cuts that are currently being implemented.

Yet the consequences is train services across Yorkshire becoming even more overcrowded as motorists are priced off the road – a scenario that is simply not tolerable.

In its defence, Ministers point to their determination to press ahead, at the earliest opportunity, with the construction of a new high-speed rail network running along the spine of the country. That maybe so. But there is no guarantee that Yorkshire will benefit from the ambitious scheme's first phase – and high-speed rail will do nothing, in the short-term, to improve commuter services in the major cities.

Many train operators have made a handsome profit since the railway industry's botched privatisation. The time has come for the Government to put pressure on them to become more innovative in the provision of extra rolling stock that is long overdue – just like so many trains.