THE company which runs the bulk of train services across Dorset and Hampshire is to pay its boss £98 million and his sister £70 million.

And a further £532 million will be paid out to the other shareholders of South West Trains owner Stagecoach.

Stagecoach chief executive Brian Souter's 14 per cent stake will earn him £98 million.

His sister Ann Gloag, who owns around 10 per cent of Stagecoach, is set to receive at least £70 million.

They are benefiting from Stagecoach's decision to return around £700 million to shareholders following improved trading.

Shareholders will get around about 63p a share - almost double the £400 million originally signalled by the company in December.

Stagecoach is also likely to make a special cash contribution of £50 million into the group pension scheme by June.

The spare cash has come from Stagecoach's disposals of its New Zealand and London bus operations - enabling it to propose the return, as well as pay off outstanding debt.

Stagecoach runs more than 1,700 South West Trains services across 13 counties - including Dorset and Hampshire - every day.

That represents more than 160 million passenger journeys every year for South West Trains.

Some 89.7 per cent of its services ran to time or were less than five minutes late, according to performance tables for the four weeks to March 4.

That is above the standard demanded by the Passenger Charter for mainline services (89 per cent) but below for suburban services (92 per cent).

Season ticket holders would receive discounts if performance fell below 86.5 per cent for mainline services or 89.5 per cent for suburban services.

Any complaints by other ticketholders would be dealt with on a case-by-case basis, said SWT.

  • Details, SWT customer services, 0845 6000 650.