Ticket office closures 'could put lives at risk' as rail users left without help

24 August 2023 , 18:13

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Lives could be put at risk if ministers press ahead with plans to close almost every railway ticket office in England, campaigners told a Mirror event.

RMT General Secretary Mick Lynch said the plan to shut ticket counters at 974 stations across England would result in vital staff members being cut, leaving vulnerable passengers without support. He warned that stations could also become havens for criminals and drug dealers if they are left unmanned.

The rail union leader was speaking at the Mirror Save Our Ticket Offices online rally, alongside Paralympics legend Tanni Grey-Thompson, Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham and Chris Theobald from the Guide Dogs charity. The Mirror is leading efforts to stop the closures, which will particularly hit the elderly, vulnerable and disabled.

Mr Burnham, who forced rail bosses to extend the consultation on the closures last month after he and four other Labour regional mayors threatened to take them to court, vowed to "fight it every step of the way".

He said the idea was a "serious act of levelling down" and the Tories risked being punished at the next election for breaking their manifesto pledge to level up the country. He added: "Britain feels pretty broken at the moment. Don't break it even more with this completely dogmatic, discriminatory and dangerous proposal to take these vital services out of thousands of communities across our country."

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Mr Lynch, whose RMT union represents many rail workers, has warned the closures could lead to up to 2,300 job losses. He said that lives could be put at risk, adding: "They're not just closing the ticket offices - that's the headline. They are removing staff.

"So they're removing train dispatch staff, who are safety critical. They're removing gate line staff - they'd like to make that remote control from some obscure call centre. They want everybody to just use these push button help points, which don't work normally, and won't get you assistance when you need it."

He branded the plan a "fig leaf for massive cuts" and warned that "social behaviour will go through the roof" if rules are changed no longer requiring staff on the network. "The people that will be fully aware that there's no staff there will be the drug dealers and the criminals who have used the railway network and other parts of our transport infrastructure," he warned.

Baroness Grey-Thompson, who is one of Britain’s greatest Paralympic athletes, said: "This is just going to push more and more disabled people away from the railway."

She described how station staff have intervened in the past to help her. "I've been late at night at a train station, someone's come up and started behaving inappropriately towards me and being quite creepy - not more than that but still very uncomfortable for a woman and a wheelchair user - staff have come and rescued me." She added: "So many people will have had experiences like that."

Mr Burnham said: "We'll fight it every single step of the way. And we're so grateful to the Mirror for fighting this wholeheartedly with us. We're really grateful to Mirror readers for joining us. We stick together, we stay strong. We know we've got right on our side, this is a fight we can win and we need to win."

Time is running out for passengers to have their say on the cull. Members of the public have until next Friday (Sept 1) to take part in the official consultation on the cull.

So far more than 460,000 people have had their say in the official consultation on the closures, which closes next Friday.

Anthony Smith, chief executive of the independent watchdog Transport Focus, said: “It’s not too late to have your say. There’s a really big decision to be made about the future of ticket offices and it’s vital that we hear from as many people as possible.”

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