NORTH Pembrokeshire Transport Forum has said that members of the public are being "let down far too often" by the train service in north Pembrokeshire.

A report to the group's AGM last month said that services had been characterised as "irregular and unreliable" with regard to cancellations, disruptions, road replacement services, information provision, accessibility, connectivity and unsuitable rolling stock.

The AGM report said that members of the public were making their frustrations very clear and that some consequences of the disruptions included customers being late to work, missing medical appointments, meetings, conferences, social events, family responsibilities.

There were also reports of travellers failing to make ongoing connections to all parts of the UK and beyond, as well as missing the connection with the last bus to Fishguard from Fishguard and Goodwick station.

"Many now say that they have been forced to use the stations at Haverfordwest and Port Talbot," said the AGM report. "This was common practice before the provision of the additional trains in 2011."

The AGM report did state however, that there had been positive developments regarding train transport too.

These included work to clear the vegetation between Clarbeston Road and Fishguard, timetable workshops, viists to Fishguard station by Transport for Wales' stakeholder manager, Katie Powis, and an action plan addressing road replacement services.

Bethan Jelfs, customer delivery director for Transport for Wales Rail Services, said:

"Our customers in Pembrokeshire are incredibly important to us and we are committed to providing them with a regular and reliable service.

"While the current Covid-19 pandemic has led to us and all other train operators in the UK to introduce a reduced timetable, we recognise that prior to that there had been some disruption to services in Pembrokeshire.

"This was mainly due to the severe weather and the impact from the large number of storms along with route closures for essential lineside safety work clearing potentially dangerous trees from the banks."

"When we are able to return to normal, we expect that work will leave us in a stronger position to give the people of Pembrokeshire the service they deserve. And longer term, our customers can look forward to brand new diesel trains, which will be introduced as part of our £800 million investment in new rolling stock and will provide a further capacity increase and faster services."