Government U-turn over rail ticket office closures in England

Plans to close railway station ticket offices in England have been scrapped, in a government U-turn.

The transport secretary, Mark Harper, said the “government had asked train operators to withdraw their proposals”.

The move came after a huge public backlash to the cost-cutting proposals, which attracted 750,000 responses in a public consultation, 99% of which were objections, according to the passenger watchdogs managing the survey.

Harper announced the decision minutes after the watchdogs, Transport Focus and London TravelWatch, announced that they would formally object to all of the closure proposals.

Transport Focus said the responses “contained powerful and passionate concerns about the potential changes” that would have resulted in almost all of England’s remaining 1,007 ticket offices closing in the next few years.

Although the cost-cutting proposals were made by the train operators managing the station offices, they were widely understood to have been pushed by a government eager to trim the subsidy for rail.

Harper said: “The consultation on ticket offices has now ended, with the government making clear to the rail industry throughout the process that any resulting proposals must meet a high threshold of serving passengers.

“We have engaged with accessibility groups throughout this process and listened carefully to passengers as well as my colleagues in parliament.

“The proposals that have resulted from this process do not meet the high thresholds set by ministers, and so the government has asked train operators to withdraw their proposals.”

However, rail industry figures were said to be seething at the U-turn on proposals that the government had urged upon them.

A train operator source told the PA Media news agency: “There is quiet fury in the rail industry about where we’ve got to. The plan was signed off by civil servants and ministers. They’ve U-turned.”

The chief executive of Transport Focus, Anthony Smith, said the watchdogs had objected to all closures despite “in-depth discussions with train companies” that had secured significant amendments.

Speaking before Harper’s announcement, Smith said: “Serious overall concerns remain about how potentially useful innovations, such as ‘welcome points’ would work in practice. We also have questions about how the impact of these changes would be measured and how future consultation on staffing levels will work.”

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Michael Roberts, the chief executive of London TravelWatch, which handled responses for 269 stations, added: “The way many passengers buy tickets is changing and so we understand the need to move with the times.

“The three big issues for the public arising from the consultation were how to buy tickets in future, how to get travel advice and information at stations, and how disabled passengers can get assistance when they need it … We don’t think the train companies have gone far enough to meet our concerns and those of the public.”

The plans to close ticket offices were announced in July with a three-week public consultation, provoking outcry and a hasty extension to the consultation period. Operators said only 13% of tickets were bought in offices and staff would be redeployed but unions said it was a “fig leaf for redundancies”.

The chief executive of the industry body the Rail Delivery Group, Jacqueline Starr, said the abandoned closure plans were meant to address the changing needs of customers as well as the “significant financial challenge faced by the industry”.

She added: “While these plans won’t now be taken forward, we will continue to look at other ways to improve passenger experience while delivering value for the taxpayer.”

The shadow transport secretary, Louise Haigh, said: “These shambolic plans have fallen apart under scrutiny. The government failed to come clean on the impact of these proposals for accessibility and job security and now have been forced into a humiliating climbdown, disowning the very proposals ministers championed from the start.”

Mick Lynch, the general secretary of the RMT, said it was a “resounding victory” and called for a summit with government, industry and user groups “to agree a different route for the rail network that guarantees the future of our ticket offices and station staff jobs, to deliver a safe, secure and accessible service that puts passengers before profit”.