POOR performances from British Rail have led to Greater Manchester Transport chiefs withholding another £1.4 million from local rail services. This brings the total to £3 million withheld over the last two years, on an annual budget of around £33 million.

Said GMPTA policy chairman Councillor Jack Flanagan: "The sad litany of late and cancelled trains has continued yet again with another drop in performance of local rail services.

"The Government is pouring money into its farcical privatisation process yet starving the actual rail services of vital investment. Privatisation continues unabated, tearing our railway network apart - a network that was once the envy of the world.

"In the interests of profit passengers will be required to put up with paying higher fares for less trains - that is if they turn up at all!"

Mr Flanagan went on to say that his Authority cannot use tax payers' money to pay for services that have not been delivered.

He concluded: "We will only pay for what passengers get."

ZIN the four weeks to December 9 last year approximately 20 per cent of trains were more than five minutes late and approximately 2.4 per cent of services were cancelled.

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