ACORN England & Wales Campaigns

ACORN's National Campaigns.

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ACORN's National Campaigns.

Join in with a national action so we can win. We are stronger together.

Email your candidates - Transport

On July 4th, the nation will go to the polls. ACORN is focusing on 4 demands at this election, both looking to national parties to deliver the changes we need, but also calling on local candidates to commit to fighting for these areas if they are elected.

Use this template to write to your local candidates and tell them to support ACORN's transport demands; publicly owned rail, rolling stock and buses, run for the common good. You can maximise your impact by using your voice to personalise the message.

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Subject:

I am a resident of the constituency you are contesting and a supporter of ACORN, the community union. I am reaching out to you because I am deeply concerned about the poor state of our public transport, which is affecting my community and others like it all over the country.

Getting a train in this country is a nightmare, and we pay the most expensive fares in Europe for the privilege. Railway workers are under constant attacks from the operators, who want to cut costs without regard for passenger safety or train accessibility. Not only do our trains cost passengers a small fortune, taxpayers also have to shoulder the burden of effective subsidies via Network Rail, while the operating companies pay out millions in dividends. The wider economy also pays a price, as both operators and rolling stock companies exploit their monopolies to soak up money that could go towards productive activity elsewhere, without contributing productively.

Train re-nationalisation is straightforward and cheap to do. To avoid paying compensation to the railway companies, we can simply take the train lines back into public ownership as the private contracts expire. Public ownership wouldn't be a magic bullet that solves our transport problems overnight, but it would end the era of our railways being a fractured mess, dominated by short-term thinking in the interests of private shareholders, rather than the common good. We must also end the practice of leasing from Rolling Stock Companies, and nationalise our rolling stock. We don’t have to look far afield for examples of great publicly owned railways. Switzerland has the best railways in Europe, and they are completely nationalised. As well as bringing down extortionate fares, we should also make buying a ticket simple, and eliminate the complicated fares system we have at the moment where passengers have to buy multiple tickets for legs of their journey to get the cheapest price. Passengers should be able to use a single ticket on rail, bus and tram systems, making public transport as simple and accessible to use as possible.

Our buses are arguably in a worse state than our railways. Buses operate in an unregulated wild-west free market, where fares, routes, timetables and standards are set by the operators. They were deregulated in the 1980s, and in the time since fares have doubled and usage has halved as a consequence of bus operators cutting routes and increasing fares. Despite a lack of public oversight, the companies are dependent on public cash, with 40% of bus operator revenue coming from the public purse. This means that the taxpayer guarantees bus company profits without getting a say in how they are run.

I’d like to see bus franchising phased in across the board, with councils having the power to set routes, fares and working conditions, and strip contracts from failing operators. In addition, Westminster should end the ban on publicly owned bus companies, and support local authorities to establish them and run them in the interests of bus users and workers, with that support including significant funding. Socially important routes should be permitted to run at a loss, such as those that serve rural areas or provide people with access to vital services. Fares should be set according to what people can afford, not what brings in the most profits. With a system of franchising in place, public and private operators would be playing by the same rules, and failing private companies could have their routes transferred to public operators if they fail to provide an affordable and reliable service, with good pay and conditions for staff.

ACORN is a union representing renters across England and Wales, you can read their transport asks of the next government here.

Thank you for reading my letter, if you are elected, will you argue for these changes our communities need?. I would be interested to hear back from you with your thoughts on why our public transport system is so broken, and what you think we should do to fix it.

To read our demands in full, visit https://www.acorntheunion.org.uk/election_2024

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