Hertfordshire County Council's transport chief has blasted a rail operator over "unacceptable" delays due to staff shortages.

Cllr Derrick Ashley has written to Govia Thameslink Railway (GTR) after a surge of complaints that the services from London Kings Cross and the Midland Main Line were disrupted on Sunday, September 20.

Cllr Ashley, the council's cabinet member for transport, wrote: "As a train user myself, I find this ongoing situation of cancellations across all GTR lines in the county completely unacceptable, as do many of our residents.

"When run well, train travel can be enjoyable, fast and efficient. Over 60,000 residents in Hertfordshire use trains as part of their daily commute into London, not to mention the many train services that connect people to places throughout Hertfordshire.

"Travelling by train is by no means a cheap mode of transport, and so for paying customers who expect a decent level of service, repeated cancellations and delays of this nature are incredibly frustrating.

"Not only is the uncertainty of how long it will take to get your destination a problem, but also how the disruption is handled with insufficient information being given to passengers to inform their onward journeys.

"This in turn causes significant ongoing stress and hassle for people who rely on trains to get to their destination."

Cllr Ashley also urged GTR to improve communication of cancelled services, and reduce timetables at key times if there are not enough staff.

Roger Perkins apologised for the delays and said the situation is improving with the biggest recruitment and training programme in the UK.

He said: "When we took over Thameslink and Great Northern, there were not enough drivers to carry out both day-to-day operations and the large amount of training required to enable long-term passenger service improvements, so drivers have been working rest days to help cover this.

"To address the situation, we have been working flat out to bring in more drivers with the biggest recruitment and training programme in the UK.

"On Thameslink and Great Northern we have brought in 54 qualified drivers since January with over 140 more in training. We have doubled the number of driver trainers and tripled our number of courses.

"However, there is no overnight fix.

"We cannot train the large number of drivers we need all at once and it takes over a year to train a driver to the high safety standards expected in the industry during which time people retire and leave for personal reasons.

"As a result, there continues to be a risk of cancellations, in particular during periods of high annual leave – but we are steadily addressing this."