Rail ticket office closure plan gets 100,000 replies

Rail users have sent in 100,000 responses to proposed ticket office closures in England.

The Transport Focus watchdog said the response to its ongoing consultation has been "huge" so far.

The plans, which have faced criticism, are the latest flashpoint for train operators, which are also in a deadlocked dispute with unions over planned reforms.

RMT members are striking on Thursday as part of a series of actions.

The dispute, which has continued for more than a year, is over job security, conditions and pay.

Passengers should expect large areas of the rail network to have little or no services, National Rail said.

Meanwhile, train firms are pressing ahead with plans to close the majority of ticket offices in England.

There has been some fierce criticism of the plans, including from disability campaigners and rail unions.

Transport Focus has been running a consultation to get reactions from people, which is running until Wednesday 26 July.

A spokesman for the consumer watchdog said it was too early to say whether the responses so far were mostly against the proposed closures, or supported them.

Five Labour mayors are preparing a legal challenge, saying the 21-day timescale for the consultation was "totally inadequate".

Under the proposals, some ticket kiosks would remain in large stations, but elsewhere staff will be on concourses to sell tickets, offer travel advice and help people with accessibility.

However, RMT general secretary Mick Lynch said that some stations would "only get staff for two hours, so if you're an elderly person travelling off-peak, there will be no-one there to assist you".

He added that 2,300 station staff are "not being moved from behind glass to assist passengers" but instead would be made redundant "en masse".

Last week commons speaker Lindsay Hoyle challenged rail minister Huw Merriman over the planned closures.

Mr Merriman had said "no currently staffed station will become unstaffed" as a result of the proposals.

However, Mr Hoyle said the railway station in his constituency, Chorley, would effectively become unstaffed after 4pm.

Jacqueline Starr, chief executive of the Rail Delivery Group, which represents train operators, said on Wednesday the planned closures were "about people bringing people out from behind the glass screens".

Staff would be "on the concourse, enabling a conversation with customers, enabling them to assist customers, have a dialogue, and also, when necessary, helping customers to navigate the ticket vending machines which would be on the platform," she said.

She insisted the industry was "genuinely listening to the accessibility groups that have a number of concerns", and she was having meetings with the rail minister and disability groups.

When asked by the BBC on Wednesday if she would promise that every ticket currently available at ticket offices would be available at a machine or online, including the least expensive, Ms Starr replied: "I'm not going to make promises that I can't keep".

She added: "We are working hard to ensure that where possible, every ticket is offered by a ticket vending machine".

But campaigner Natasha Winter, who set up the Save Stourbridge Ticket Office group, said when she found out about the consultation on the ticket office closures she was "absolutely outraged".

"We're talking about punishing and penalising the members of society who maybe can't use new technology," she said.

"The station is going to become less user-friendly for the whole community," she added.

On Thursday, rail workers in the RMT union at 14 train companies will walk out, as part of a long-running dispute over pay, jobs and conditions.

The operators are based in England but some run services into Wales and Scotland.

There will be further strikes on 22 and 29 July.

The extent of disruption will vary around the country, with some services starting late and finishing much earlier than normal.

In addition, train drivers in the Aslef union are not working overtime at 15 train companies between 17 and 22 July.

This isn't a full strike but could cause some reduced timetables and last-minute cancellations.

Following the impact of the Covid pandemic, the industry faces pressure to cut costs from the government, which controls what's on the table in the dispute.

The latest proposals presented by the Rail Delivery Group included a backdated pay rise of 5%, followed by 4% this year - in exchange for changes to working practices to be worked through with individual operators.

The dispute reached an impasse when the RMT rejected this in April.

The RDG continues to call on the union to give its members a vote on the offer.

Mr Lynch of the RMT said "there are conditions in this offer that we can't live with", and ministers had not granted the operators permission to negotiate further.

But Ms Starr said the existing "very good" offer remained on the table, and the RDG was "very open to continuing conversations". However, she would not say if new proposals would be put forward.

Ms Starr added that the industry "can't afford for the industry to stand still", and would "continue with reform".