Old Oak Common is the new railway station being built to the west of London alongside the great western railway line. It was intended to be the hub of HS2 when the Conservatives decided they couldn’t afford to finish off even the London to Birmingham part of the project. The plan was to be to get off the train at Old Oak Common and get on another train into London or to go north.

This Labour government has committed to finish the Birmingham to London leg of HS2 properly and start the tunnelling work needed to get it though to Euston station.

However, Old Oak Common is now a building site and a decade of work lies ahead to turn it into a rail hub. It is geographically a long way from us, but it will impact our journeys to and from the capital and is something that is unlikely to benefit the people of Cornwall very much at all. Our trains to Cornwall are slow, fragile and expensive. This work, on top of the regular issues that we still suffer on our railway of cracked lines, cancellations and lack of electrification, may tip many passengers over the edge and off the trains.

The next decade will bring many Sunday and Christmas closures, re-routing of trains to Euston or via the tube and Elizabeth Line, speed restrictions on the line and longer journey times.

These changes are bound to impact on our economy. It is already a struggle to get a train on a Sunday and the line is often subject to cancellations. Visitors and people trying to do business in and from Cornwall will be discouraged. The train won’t be taking the strain, it’ll be causing it!

Luke Pollard MP for Plymouth has been campaigning for mitigations to this work and improvement for train travel to the South West for a long time. I have taken up the mantle somewhat, and in the last fortnight a cross-party group of MPs from the region has met GWR train company, Network Rail and the Rail Minister. The Minister promised to go up to West London and try to seek a reduced timetable for the work. The first closure of Paddington will have happened between me writing this article and it being published.

Our rail travel to and from Cornwall needs improving and speeding up, not sidelining and slowing down. We need faster trains, more branch lines, the work on the line at Dawlish to be completed, electrification, bringing back the buffet car! Hopefully improvements will be made as a result of the bill currently going through Parliament to renationalise the railways. But in the meantime, we will continue to push hard for improvement to our trains. We should not suffer from a slower, disjointed railway so that 10 minutes can be shaved off an already pretty speedy journey from London to Birmingham. We will be meeting the Minister regularly and pushing for better.

HS:SW? Why not, one day?

Jayne Kirkham

Labour MP for Truro and Falmouth