Rail ticket office closures in England scrapped in government U-turn

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 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.

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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 plans to close ticket offices were unveiled 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”.