Sack Northern

It looks like we start the new year with a massive campaign victory round the corner, thanks to our 'Sack Northern' campaign.

In an interview on the BBC this morning, Transport Secretary Grant Shapps appeared to confirm Northern Rail will be stripped of its franchise due to poor performance following a review which was launched in October.

This looks like a really big breakthrough in our long running campaign.

Once again over the Christmas and New Year holidays, hundreds of passengers have been left stranded on stations across the South Lakes and the rest of the north of England because of Northern's complete failure to actually run trains on a train line.

Northern's service has been completely inadequate with years of cancelled trains, shoddy services and pathetic excuses - to the point that we had to work together as a community and run our own services on two separate occasions over the past 18 months.

Removing Northern's franchise won't come a moment too soon - and it'll be thanks to the support of everyone who signed our petition or joined us on the protest march from Windermere to Oxenholme.

We've been campaigning for this for the last two years - I only wish this Conservative Government had realised the north's train services were in chaos sooner.

Now the minister must walk the walk - and we must keep up the pressure on him to do that. But it's time for Northern to go.