LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Great British Railways!

A “Transition Team” have gathered “evidence” from 307 transport organisations. One of the criteria was, surprisingly, “meeting customer needs”. They, probably, didn’t ask First who run buses and trains with no awareness of customer needs.

Then towns and cities were invited to bid for the honour of having GBR headquarters. Unpredictably, Sheffield – with its central location – didn’t bid. Neither, more predictably, did Rotherham Council. Continually blaming the government (and Meadowhall) for all of our woes wouldn’t have gone down well in Whitehall. It’s a shame: a few more buildings could have been knocked down to accommodate the headquarters.

I understand that the selection process is based on Strictly Come Dancing, including public voting (by August 15). Five candidates have reached the shortlist. They were, I think, selected not on their suitability but how many times they used words like resilience, hub, connectivity.

The City of Doncaster is one of the five. (It’s rumoured that they will dance The Foxtrot in the final.) I’ve glanced through their application. Well, how else am I going to fill my retirement?

It reports a consultation process which received “an incredible xxxx responses”. Whew! Perhaps they submitted the bid before they’d counted the responses. The good folk of Donny might have seen the 42 pages of jargon and references to things like The Northern Powerhouse Partnership and none bothered with the consultation.

I voted for them, not through any county loyalty, but because I couldn’t face reading another four applications. I don’t need to fill that much retirement time.

So, after decades without British Railways, it’s coming back; this time it’s going to be Great. Hooray. I like co-ordination. Rotherham Station will be thronged with happy passengers, most of whom will have to walk home because there won’t be any First buses.   

Rob Slow