'There's a business in Bury where workers sleep in the staff room because there's no night buses'

Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander is today visiting Manchester as part of an 11 stop roadshow looking at how the England's public transport system can be better joined up. Here she explains how she wants to do away with the nagging sense 'things don't quite work'.

Dunster’s Farm is a wholesaler in Bury. They’re a good employer that pay the living wage.

But there’s one problem outside their control. There’s no night-time public transport in the area.

And because of that, workers on the late shift sometimes have no choice but to sleep in the staff room. It’s one example of many, in the North West and beyond, where a lack of reliable, integrated transport is letting people down.

We all know what this feels like. A nagging sense that things aren’t joined up or that they don’t quite work.

Your train pulls up five minutes after your bus leaves. Access to disabled toilets or step free access feels like a lottery rather than a consistent experience.

Car parks located next to each other yet you require different apps to pay. And there’s more road congestion because of a lack of practical alternatives – including cycling and walking.

These small daily frustrations add up. They make people’s lives harder.

Opportunities for work and education are pushed out of reach. Chances to improve communities, to attract investment, and to drive the economic growth this country needs all get missed.

But none of this is inevitable. Our Plan for Change – be it improving living standards or building new housing – depends on designing transport networks that put people first.

That sounds obvious. But it hasn’t been the way decisions have always been made.

We need a huge culture shift in transport – to fundamentally reorientate transport