It has been confirmed that ticket offices at train stations across the United Kingdom will be permanently closed. While face to face counters will remain at some of the busiest stations, a full list has been unveiled of train stations that will lose their tickets under new plans with London Marylebone, London Waterloo, Birmingham New Street and Manchester Piccadilly among the cuts. Brits will be forced to use websites or train operators’ apps, use the self service machines at stations or tap in with contactless or Oyster cards to buy their tickets.
Plans have been announced by Rail firms for the mass closure of England’s offices to modernize the railway. It is feared the move to axe up to 1,000 offices and will likely make travelling difficult for the elderly and vulnerable, increase crime rates and prompt more industrial action infuriating disability and passenger groups and ramping up the battle with unions.
The move confirmed by the industry body, the Rail Delivery Group has been pushed by the government to save costs. Last morning, staff were informed by train operators of proposals to shut down almost all the 1,007 remaining offices except at the busiest stations, within 3 years.
Although the Rail Delivery Group said that ticket office staff would move onto concourses and station platforms in new and engaging roles, many fear job losses while any guarantees offered over compulsory redundancies in pay talks are set to expire by the end of next year.
The RMT union claimed that operators had already issued statutory redundancy notices that affected hundreds of staff and called it a ‘savage attack on railway workers, their families and the travelling public’, but this has been denied by the RDG. Train operators claim that there were no redundancy notices, but it is understood that section 188 letters informing staff and unions that posts were at risk, and a legal requirement for possible widespread redundancies have been sent. Mick Lynch, the RMT general secretary said that it was clear that the entire enterprise of closing ticket offices has nothing to do with modernization, and was a thinly veiled plan to gut the railways of station staff.
131 out of 149 remaining Northern Rail ticket offices, and all those run by Avanti West Coast and stations as big as Darlington and Durham on LNER were among the proposed closures. While offices will be axed, support staff hours will be reduced across stations.
The industry however argues that only 12% of tickets are presently purchased at offices, down from 82% in 1995.
Jacqueline Starr, Chief Executive of the RDG said that the ways customers purchased tickets had changed and it was time for the railway to change with them. Wednesday morning market the commencement of the 3 week formal consultation period, while passengers are urged to make their voices heard through the independent watchdogs London TravelWatch and Transport Focus. A director at the pressure group Railfuture, Neil Middleton said that even if there may be a cost saving, change should not be forced. He further stated that it is very easy to see that income will reduce if fewer passengers are on the trains.
The Royal National Institute of Blind People stated that the closure would have a huge detrimental impact on partially sighted and blind people’s ability to buy tickets, arrange assistance and travel independently, citing research which showed that only 3% could use a vending machine without problems.
The Green party said that it was a needless fight instigated by a government that did not care about people who used public transport to get around.
