LibDem parliamentary candidate Sandy Walkington has accused First Capital Connect of making “as much of a dog’s breakfast” with their compensation offer as they have of running the actual rail service.

“The latest compensation proposals still seem unnecessarily complex and frankly niggardly given what people have gone through. As for people who have already claimed under the Delay Repay Scheme, the way this has been handled beggars belief. I am told by local commuters that rather than one single set of tickets for a combined claim, passengers are receiving a separate envelope and letter with rail travel voucher for each journey leg where delays were more than 30 minutes. One local commuter told me she came home to 13 separate letters, each with 36p postage. One of her fellow passengers had his letter box inundated with 24 identical envelopes, again each carrying 36p postage. This will have been repeated for thousands of commuters.

“I have already commented on the basic unfairness of the one-size-fits-all national Delay Repay scheme with its cut-off point of 30 minutes, so St Albans commuters have to be delayed by more than 100 perent of their journey time to qualify. It would have been far better if FCC had devised a simple and appropriately generous season ticket extension scheme from the beginning. Instead season ticket holders will have inconvenient vouchers to put on one side while their current ticket runs, and a huge amount of money will have been swallowed up in unnecessary postage and administrative bureaucracy.”

“Together with Norman Baker MP, Liberal Democrat shadow transport secretary, I am meeting Neal Lawson, MD of FCC, tomorrow (Tuesday 2nd February) and I will be challenging him to come up with a commitment to make a much more substantial and meaningful recognition of what passengers have had to endure for so many months. I have no doubt he and his managers will be left in no doubt on this matter when they come to meet passengers at St Albans City Station later this week.”