A FRUSTRATED MP has called on a rail firm to stop “isolating” his constituency.

Harwich and North Essex MP Sir Bernard Jenkin said he regularly received emails from constituents complaining about the rail service.

Now he has penned a letter to Greater Anglia managing director Jamie Burles questioning the delays and cancellations on the line from Manningtree to Harwich.

“This isolates the Harwich Peninsula and limits the ability of residents of the town to work in London,” he said.

Sir Bernard said Greater Anglia could no longer “fall back” on the excuse that new trains are coming.

The disgruntled Tory MP added: “This has been said for years, since the new rolling stock was announced as part of the franchise and I know my constituents are fed up with being told this.

“It remains the case that on the majority of the line new rolling stock is not yet in place, trains continue to be delayed and commuters continue to face frequent misery caused by the uncertainty in the train service.

“My constituents also have no indication as to when the rolling stock they use will be changed.”

Sir Bernard told the Greater Anglia boss he only had to take to the firm’s Twitter page to find reports of “delays upon delays”.

Speaking to the Gazette about the letter, Sir Bernard said rail users in his constituency were “sick” of the situation.

“There are often issues with the line and in recent months it has gone from bad to worse,” he said.

“Delays are one thing, but to be left standing at a platform only to be told after the fact that a train is either not running or it is a short, cramped service is just intolerable.

“Commuters pay a huge amount for a service and they expect that service to run properly.

“Most people accept that the odd incident is inevitable, but these problems have become a daily occurrence and it is understandable that rail users are frankly quite sick of it.

“I met Greater Anglia with other Essex MPs in January and we made clear that Greater Anglia cannot keep falling back on the new trains being on the way.

“Improvements are needed now.”

A Greater Anglia spokeswoman said Mr Burles had pledged to improve punctuality this year.

“We apologise to passengers who have not had a good experience while travelling with us,” she said.

“We would like to reassure passengers that we are doing all we can to improve performance.”

She pointed to figures which show the current punctuality performance on the line between Harwich and London Liverpool street stands at 93 per cent.

“There have been several Network Rail infrastructure problems this year and storms Ciara and Dennis, which brought trees down across our network and led to two incidents which between them, caused many cancellations to our services,” she added.

“There has also been a number of track defects which have resulted in cancellations and delays.”

“We understand that customers are frustrated about hearing about new trains coming, but brand new trains will be a major improvement to their journeys, with more seats and better facilities on board.

“We started to introduce new trains into passenger service on our network last July and the roll-out is continuing this year, with the first of the type of trains which will be used on the Harwich-Liverpool Street line now on the network and being tested.