A man has been charged with robbery in connection with an incident in Twyford on Sunday (22/4).
At around 10.30pm, an 18 year-old man was robbed of his iPod in Bath Road.
Damon Darani, aged 23, of High Street, Twyford, appeared before Reading Magistrates’ Court yesterday (24/4). He has been remanded in custody and will appear at Reading Crown Court on Thursday 2 August.
Thames Valley Police ~ Twyford
Earlier this week FGW and Network Rail held a drop in session in the House of Commons. I try never to miss an opportunity to raise local issues with them and so although I was not able to attend personally my Research Assistant Sara Rajeswaran went and took the opportunity to raise some of the specific problems that we have been experiencing recently.
I had already raised with FGW the problems of the 0632 Twyford and 0639 Maidenhead service which is meant to run with 10 carriages but frequently turns up with only 5. They explained that the problem is that other trains are breaking down and FGW have had to stretch their existing fleet to cover all the services on their timetable. I made it clear to FGW that it is not acceptable to continue to run one of our very few fast morning services with only 5 cars, especially after they have added a stop at Pangbourne. When the service was increased to 10 cars with an additional stop at Pangbourne on 26 March this was supposed to improve our services but have so far it has only made them worse. I have told them that they need to consider different contingency plans for broken down trains, rather than just cutting the size of one of our few fast morning peak services. FGW have told me that they will consider other options and get back to me – and I shall be sure to follow them up on this promise. If we are to see no changes in May to our services we cannot allow them to further ruin the poor service we currently have.
Sara also spoke to both Network Rail and FGW about evening peak trains failing to make their scheduled stop at Maidenhead - an issue which I had already raised with FGW. Network Rail have admitted that the problem is with their points and they said that they have been onto the tracks on many occasions recently to deal with these problems. However if the problems keep occurring they have clearly not managed to solve the faults with their points and this is unacceptable. I have asked them to get back to me with the exact work they have carried out and the work they intend to do in the future. Faulty points are unacceptable and Network Rail need to do something about the points outside Maidenhead soon.
However, FGW also have a role to play in the problem. If they had allowed the train concerned to stop at Platform 1 at Maidenhead with passengers disembarking from a limited number of carriages then people would not have suffered considerable delays to their journeys. I have asked them to get back to me with the exact reasons why they will not let their doors be opened manually. If a limited number of doors could be opened by the driver passengers could get out at Maidenhead even when the train overshoots the platform.
I am sorry that the news could not be better at this point but I am in constant dialogue with both FGW and Network Rail on these and many other issues and I will keep this dialogue going until we see a reasonable solution.
I have also attached to this email a four page letter I received from Alison Forster in response to a letter I sent her some time ago stating in explicit details the problems we had at that time. Although it does not say a lot of things which we have not heard before I thought you would all be interested in reading it. Holders of First class tickets will note her comments about the reduction in the cost of season tickets!
As ever do keep your emails coming to me and to fgwfeedback@firstgroup.com. We should not let down the pressure until we have the train service which we deserve.
The Rt Hon Theresa May MP
Shadow Leader of the House of Commons
