A UNITED front of workers and campaigners is challenging Nicola Sturgeon to reject ScotRail’s plan to make widespread cuts to its services.

Unions have joined forces with pensioners, environmentalists, passengers and public ownership activists to demand that proposals to axe 100,000 train services a year – 12 per cent of the ScotRail timetable – are abandoned.

The challenge was issued in a letter to the Scottish First Minister today.

The cuts are planned by ScotRail’s failing operator Abellio – owned by the Netherlands’ state railway network – whose franchise to run Scotland’s rail services expires in March.

Services will return to public ownership when the franchise ends.

Abellio faces increasing industrial action over pay and unions have accused the company and government-owned Transport Scotland of planning cuts as a cover for slashing costs and shedding staff.

The letter has been signed by rail unions RMT, Aslef and TSSA, together with the Unite union, Bring Back British Rail, Friends of the Earth Scotland, Get Glasgow Moving, the Scottish Pensioners Forum and We Own It.

It warns the First Minister that the cuts will be “disastrous” for Scotland’s rail network, adding that with the Cop26 world summit on climate change due to start in Glasgow at the end of October, the plan is “incomprehensible.”

The letter states: “We believe that the cuts will push passengers away from the rail network and into cars – this will do nothing to achieve the Scottish government’s climate change targets and its goal of reducing car kilometres by 20 per cent by 2030.”

Train drivers’ union Aslef also staged Save Our ScotRail protests against the cuts in Edinburgh yesterday.

Its general secretary Mick Whelan said: “As we try to rebuild the country after the ravages of the Covid-19 pandemic, we need to restore services, not cut them, to grow, not shrink, the Scottish economy.”

The Scottish government has been approached for comment.