Investigate airport shuttle delay, councillor says

The journey from the mainline to the airport terminal will take less than four minutes, Luton Rising said

An investigation into how a new airport shuttle service has increased in costs by £90m and is more than two years late has been called for by a councillor.

The Luton Direct Air-Rail Transit (DART) system was due to open at the end of 2020. Its cost have risen from £200m to about £290m.

David Franks, from the Liberal Democrats, said taxpayers were "entitled to a serious, professional and independent investigation into why all the details weren’t properly planned into the project in the first place".

Luton Rising, which owns the airport, said a "detailed [DART] project program is in place... and we continue to work towards opening by Easter."

King Charles III rose the DART in December as part of a royal visit to Luton

"We’ve been given so many start dates, but none of them has happened and the cost just keeps going up all the time", the Liberal Democrat group leader and Barnfield councillor said.

Luton Rising, previously said no precise date could be given but hoped it would be operational in April.

"At the last update, we were told the ticketing system is yet to be sorted," Mr Franks said.

"Didn’t the project managers know when they started work five years ago that they would need a ticketing system?"

Volunteers are set to take part in trials of the shuttle service in February

A report at Luton Borough Council's overview and scrutiny board heard it was due to construction delays and the "preparation of the operating contractors", the Local Democracy Reporting Service said.

The DART will be a cable-drawn, driverless railway running on a 1.4-mile (2.2km) line connecting the mainline railway station to the airport terminal in just over three minutes, 24 hours a day.

Luton Rising said the system was a "game-changing project for Luton to deliver a world-class, sustainable and seamless transfer for rail passengers..."

It added: "None of the issues which have already been fully reported threaten the success of the project."