UPDATE: Merseyrail's unfair season ticket policy
Last month I blogged on Merseyrail's unfair policy on zone changes to season tickets.
The blog post was borne out of my own personal experience. You can read the post HERE, but the long and the short of it was that Merseyrail agreed to review the policy.
I am pleased to be able to report back some more good news on this front.
The issue has been taken up by Conservative leader on transport authority Merseytravel Chris Blakeley.
He has requested a report on the the subject and it will be discussed later this month. Merseytravel control the franchise for Merseyrail and have significant influence over the operator, a consortium between Serco and NedRail.
Cllr Blakeley tells me via Twitter: "Your article gets some prominence [in the report], and was the reason I requested the report be brought to the committee."
He also tells me that hopefully it will mean that passengers are no longer stung by the unfair rules.
I look forward to seeing the report, all the signs are that the right outcome will be achieved.
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Dale Street Associates
David Bartlett
City editor of the Post and Echo covering politics, regeneration, and urban affairs.
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So Cllr Blakely listens to journalists who have an issue that happens perhaps once or twice a year - but clearly it is a journalist so it is a major issue.
Well done Cllr Blakely - no doubt those constituents of yours who have real issues are made up you are brown nosing a journalist who has nothing better to write about than a minor irritation of their's.
This whole thing stinks of cosy journalist/politician relationships.
Busman,
Thanks for commenting. Clearly this is not a major issue, but it is one of fairness. This is my second blog post on this subject out of hundreds of posts that I have put up since starting Dale Street Blues in December 2008. Cllr Blakeley did not discuss the matter with me before referring it for a report, and I have not actually spoken to it about him, other than exchange comments on the public forum Twitter, about this matter. I suspect his reason for referring it for a report is because he sees that in an age when Merseyrail should be trying to encourage people to use its services retrograde policies are not helpful. I don't accept that this is an example of a cosy journalist/politician relationship. If that were the case it would have been done in private, not in the public forum which is my blog or through an exchange on Twitter, which is also public. I was keen when I took up the issue with Merseyrail that this was something that was fixed for everyone, so that others did not find themselves in the same position.
The last post - Feb 06
David,
What has happenned? Have you been taken away by the Luciana Berger supporters? We have nothing to read, what is happening on Dale Street?