THE head of Merseyside’s transport authority quit last night – after landing a £300,000 move to Australia that will double his salary.

Neil Scales handed his notice in as chief executive of Merseytravel yesterday after 15 years.

He was immediately forced to refute claims he was leaving after a split with long-time ally Mark Dowd, the Labour chairman of Merseytravel.

That followed a political U-turn over a bid for Merseyside to take control of local train track and stations. The plan was shelved, wasting £1.5m of taxpayers’ cash.

Mr Scales will become chief executive of south east Queensland’s public transport authority, TransLink, in March, based in Brisbane

Last night, he said: “It was a hard decision to make and one I spent some considerable time agonising over, but I have received an offer which was too difficult to refuse.

“For me, this is a challenge to make a real difference on the other side of the world and an opportunity of a once-in-a lifetime experience ‘Down Under’.”

Mr Scales’s biggest achievement in his 15 years in post was helping turn around the region’s train network, which was so poor it was commonly known as ‘Miseryrail’.

In 2003 current operator the Dutch company Serco Abellio was given a 25-year franchise to run Merseyrail by the transport authority.

It marked a huge departure in the way rail franchises were handed out, and allowed investment over the long term.

Today Merseyrail is one of the best performing train networks in the country.

But Merseytravel had believed it could be improved further if the transport authority was given the power to take over control of the rails from Network Rail, a process known as “vertical integration”.

The authority spent £1.5m investigating how it could take over the rails, but the Labour-run authority performed a U-turn on the policy in June saying it was no longer convinced it was a good idea.

Strong union pressure had been applied against the policy.

The U-turn is believed to have driven a wedge between chairman Cllr Dowd and Mr Scales, although this was denied as the reason for his departure last night.

The low point of Mr Scales’s tenure will be the £70m spent on the failed Merseytram scheme – without a single piece of track being laid.

The authority borrowed £50m, and is spending almost £5m each year to pay off the debt.

The Audit Commission said if Merseytravel and Liverpool council had been able to work together, instead of spending taxpayers’ money fighting each other, the scheme could have succeeded.