A Cumbrian business leader has stood by her criticism of plans to reintroduce commercial flights at Carlisle airport.
Suzanne Caldwell, managing director of Cumbria Chamber of Commerce, made her comments after airport owner Esken said it wanted to get the facility operational following coronavirus and was investigating options.
The chamber, which has previously supported plans for the airport, questioned if Cumbria needed the service and said the train was a better option.
She told the BBC: “Public money has gone in – substantial public money – and there’s a lot of private money gone in. A lot of clever people have really tried hard to make it work and they just haven’t managed to make it work over all those years.
“I think it just does seem like the time now to say, ‘yeah, let’s stop flogging a dead horse’ and put our efforts and investment elsewhere.”
Her comments provoked a backlash on social media, with people questioning if the chamber was aware of the problems train services were facing.
Ms Caldwell told Cumbria Crack: “The current situation with the trains is an absolute national disgrace, causing severe disruption to businesses in terms of business travel and the ability of customers to travel and access services, not least hospitality.
“Urgent action is needed by the rail companies and the Government to address this. Cutting services, as Avanti have done to “increase certainty” is not the way forward and has added further to the issues.
“That said, these should be relatively short term issues. The strike issues can be overcome, as can the driver issues. With these resolved travelling by train is a much better option for many journeys than by air.
“Consider a business trip to London, for example. By train you travel quickly, generally in one seat, to central London and can work or rest in a settled way during your journey. By air you would land at some distance from the centre then have the cost, time and hassle of getting to the city centre (and out again).
“Flying into London City is bad enough, other alternatives can only be worse. In addition when the planes were running the times did not work well for business return travel.
“For holiday travel (ignoring again current, what should be relatively short term issues) it is an easier and better experience to get on one flight from say Newcastle, Glasgow or Manchester and travel to your destination than to fly from Carlisle and then change.
“And don’t forget, while we may have significant issues currently with rail travel, Carlisle airport is not offering us an alternative and has not to date succeeded in doing so on a consistent basis. It would be great is someone could. At least there are trains running! And, planes from other airports.”
