'i find it far from acceptable': andy burnham's almighty row with avanti boss

GREATER MANCHESTER'S MAYOR LAID INTO AVANTI'S BOSS, CRITICISING THE TRAIN OPERATOR'S PERFORMANCE AND CULTURE 10:01, 24 Feb 2024 Andy Burnham has accused Avanti West Coast of

failing to fix issues with the 'most important railway line in the country'. The Greater Manchester mayor urged the rail operator's boss Andy Mellors to address the

'poor' culture at the organisation in a meeting this week. It follows a tense exchange between Mr Burnham and Mr Mellors last month in which the managing director of Avanti

apologised for the delivery of its train services, saying they had 'not been good enough'. Mr Mellors also expressed his regret over a presentation in which Avanti bosses joked

about receiving 'free money' from the government, raising questions about the culture at the company. Mr Burnham repeated his criticisms at a Transport for the North (TfN) meeting

on Wednesday (February 21) and told Mr Mellors that Greater Manchester and other parts of the UK are suffering from the 'poor operations and culture' in the company. He accused

Avanti of failing to inform Transport for Greater Manchester of cancellations to services last weekend affecting fans travelling to the Etihad. _TRY MEN PREMIUM NOW FOR FREE... JUST CLICK

HERE TO GIVE IT A GO._ The Labour mayor also quizzed Mr Mellors about the controversial presentation slide which, according to _The Guardian_, was entitled 'Roll up, roll-up get your

free money here!' referring to how the firm was supported by taxpayers' money. Mr Mellors said that Avanti has been 'transparent' about the challenges it has faced over

the last 18 months and is taking action to fix some 'deep-seated' issues. But Mr Burnham was not satisfied with the responses he received, arguing that Avanti had not improved as

much as Mr Mellors claimed. In one heated exchange he asked: "Do you think it's fair to supporters of Chelsea football club who had booked trains back from the match at the Etihad

to be told late on a Friday that their trains weren't running when you knew at least a day before?" Mr Mellors said: "No, I don't think it is and we need to learn from

that. However, I would say that we did undertake a number of actions to mitigate. That included ticket acceptance with other operators who were able to put a hold on an earlier service that

made a connection at Crewe and Stafford out of other operators' services and we did put on a level of rail replacement transport as well. "But we will be reviewing what happened

last Saturday to see if there are any lessons to be learnt from it. In terms of the customer information, customer handling." To which Mr Burnham responded: "I've heard from

the start of this year, my team were saying to yours, 'tell us about half term, are there going to be problems at half term?' And we were reassured no, it was all in hand.

"Shouldn't we get to a much better relationship here when you tell us when problems are going to happen so we can begin to manage those issues together? At the moment we are being

told late with no ability to give people early warning. "It's just not an acceptable way to work." He added: "Given this, in my view, is the most important railway line

in the country, and you're talking about the two most important centres in the country, Manchester and London, are you in any way providing an acceptable service for a railway line of

that significance?" Responding, Mr Mellors said: "We're absolutely determined to deliver a fit for purpose product that our timetables, our customers and our stakeholders can

depend on and that work is continuing to happen with a high degree of rigour." Mr Burnham then asked about the culture in the organisation. He said: "Could you just explain how it

came about that at an internal meeting of your organisation, slides were prepared for that meeting that talked about 'roll up, roll up for free money,' when your performance was as

I've described. How can that be in any way an appropriate thing for an organisation in your position to be doing and how did those slides come about?" Mr Mellors responded:

"It was entirely inappropriate. The language was unacceptable and we did issue a statement in the aftermath of that to say that an investigation was ongoing into the preparation of that

material and also the dissemination of it… that investigation is still ongoing at the moment." Mr Mellors later revealed that the slide in question was presented at an all-managers

call which he attended. However, he said that he had no knowledge of the slide before the meeting and that 'improved arrangements' for signing off material have been put in place.

When asked, Mr Mellors said Avanti would not be sharing the results of that investigation with TfN's Rail North Committee. The Avanti boss said that he was 'not happy' with

the slides, but told the committee that he was not on the call at the time they were presented. Mr Burnham then asked: "Did anyone say in the meeting where they were presented that they

were not acceptable?" To which Mr Mellors responded: "That is part of the investigation. But it was a virtual call." Article continues below Other Northern leaders also

criticised Avanti during the Rail North Committee meeting which was held in public via video conference. The committee concluded that TfN officers would prepare a report setting out the

options before board members regarding Avanti. This includes issuing statutory advice to the transport secretary regarding the future of Avanti's contract which must be considered. Mr

Burnham concluded: "We honestly can't let this rumble through 2024. This is too important to the country and certainly too important to the North."