A PETITION has been handed into the Government renewing calls for the East Coast Mainline franchise to be brought back into public ownership.

The petition initiated by the campaign group We Own It and handed into the Department for Transport in London said East Coast had been run successfully for six years from 2009 while in public hands.

It said Virgin East Coast was being given a “free ticket to ruin our railway”.

Transport Secretary Chris Grayling is thought to be readying an announcement over the future of the franchise which has been run on a 90:10 basis by Stagecoach and partner Virgin.

Mr Grayling has already cut short the two firms’ contract to operate East Coast services, citing financial concerns over the multi-million pound sums they promised to pay the Government.

RMT general secretary Mick Cash, which is backing the petition, said it would be a “simple and sensible solution to bring the whole lot back in house on a permanent basis”.

He said: “There are RMT members on the job today who have gone from British Rail, to GNER, to National Express, to Directly Operated Railways, to Virgin/Stagecoach and who are now left wondering who their sixth employer will be in little more than two decades on this vital section of Britain’s rail network.

“That is a shameful way to treat the workforce and shines the spotlight on the continuing chaos of rail privatisation.”