Back in January 2019, MP Mark Francois, reported on his website that he’d had a meeting with the Chief Executive of Network Rail and he seemed fairly pleased that he’d reach some sort of deal with them over the line closure for the works needed to upgrade the overhead lines.
Commenting on the meeting, Mark said:
“I had a very cordial and useful discussion with Network Rail and was informed by Andrew Haines, that following my adjournment debate on this issue last autumn this had led to a lot of internal debate in Network Rail about how they could speed up the whole process. As a result of that, they are applying more resources to the task, which means they can end the engineering work over a year earlier than originally planned (for May 2021). I hope my constituents will be pleased at this news and while I accept there will be some disruption to people travelling home late at night, the fact that we get most of our weekends back, I think is very welcome.”
Fast forward a few months and Mark now seems less than impressed with the deal in a recent Facebook post calling for compensation for his constituents. It would appear that his comments have resulted in a lot of backlash from cynical constituents in his intentions. This would appear to be a an own goal Mr Francois – ouch!
Update – we’ve been contacted by an eagle eye reader who has told us…
He did not mind the 9 days no service because the House is in Recess.
