A LABOUR MP has said that the town 'deserves more' after it emerged that LNER will only run one train to London a day.

However, a Conservative MP has confirmed six or seven services will run in due course.

Andy McDonald Labour MP for Middlesbrough, said: "We are now told there will only be one train a day from December of this year, with little chance of that increasing until 2023 – that is not good enough and Middlesbrough deserves better."

By May 2022, if the new timetable goes ahead LNER will run one train a day to London from Middlesbrough.

The service will stop at York, Doncaster, Retford and Peterborough.

Simon Clarke, MP for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland, said: "It's great news that Middlesbrough is getting a direct train service to King's Cross and it will enter its first phase by the end of this year. Initially there will be a daily service operating to and from the capital but having spoken to LNER I can confirm that their intention is to bring this up to six or seven services, each way, per day from the end of 2022 and this will represent a fantastic asset to Middlesbrough.

"The major investment from the Tees Valley Mayor, Ben Houchen, has greatly improved our region's railway stations. Middlesbrough Station in particular has seen the benefit of a £34million upgrade, a large part of which was spent extending platform 2 so that it can accommodate LNER's Azuma trains and bring back our direct Middlesbrough/London service. This is a really exciting time for our railways and this is an important part of working to level up the life chances on Teesside. The work is not finished. I do have concerns about the proposed time table changes affecting Darlington, however we are engaging with operators to set out the options that will deliver the best services for our area."

Tees Valley Mayor Ben Houchen said: "I’m sorry Andy doesn’t know what’s going on at Middlesbrough station. The plan was always to start with one train a day in each direction, growing to seven trains a day in May 2023.

"If he’d ever had a meeting with me to discuss the plans and the introduction of this fantastic new service, he might be better informed about what has actually been agreed.

“For more than seven-years nothing happened with the transformation of Middlesbrough Station, other than the Labour Middlesbrough MP and the then Labour Mayor, Dave Budd, standing outside with pretty pictures of what a revitalised station could look like. That’s why I had to take the project off them, otherwise we’d still be waiting to get spades in the ground, and we wouldn’t be getting any trains to London.”