Updated 14.05

The RMT has criticised closures of Southeastern ticket offices, which it says were closed for about 70,000 hours or 2900 days more than they should have been between June last year and last month.

The union obtained its figures from the state-owned operator through a Freedom of Information request.

At five stations, ticket offices were open for only 1 per cent or fewer of their advertised hours, and 17 offices were closed for at least 50 per cent of their advertised hours.

The RMT is claiming that the closures are ‘part of a deliberate attempt to reduce reliance on ticket offices, despite the unprecedented opposition to proposed closures during a 2023 consultation’.

Proposals to close virtually all National Rail ticket offices attracted 750,000 responses which were nearly all opposed to the plan, and the government abandoned the closure programme at the end of October 2023.

RMT general secretary Mick Lynch said: ‘Our findings show a shocking picture of Southeastern’s failure to open ticket offices as advertised which is a clear breach of their obligations.

‘Passengers, particularly those who are elderly, disabled, or less able to navigate unstaffed stations, are being left without the support they need and will potentially be put off from using the railway altogether.

’Rail operators once again are trying to undermine essential services and erode public trust in our railways.

’The government must step in now to protect ticket offices and ensure Southeastern is held to account.’

The Southeastern contract had been owned by Govia, but it was renationalised in October 2021 after financial irregularities were revealed.

Southeastern passenger services director David Wornham said: ‘Any claims that we are trying to reduce reliance on ticket offices across our network are wholly inaccurate.

‘The actual situation is quite the reverse. The most recent data shows we met over 85 per cent of our scheduled ticket office opening hours in the last four-week period – a record high following the pandemic and the national ticket office consultation.

‘We have a total of 141 ticket offices and have doubled our training capacity to support our unprecedented recruitment drive which has seen just under 100 new colleagues introduced in our ticket offices in the last 12 months and we expect that number to continue to grow in the coming weeks, with a further 20 roles currently being advertised.

‘Southeastern is a growing railway. We added 220 trains a week to our timetable in December and we are currently running a £2 million programme of station improvements with deep cleans.

‘We are offering over 400 apprenticeships this year and we will shortly open a new recruitment and training centre in Ashford as we recruit more people for trainee driver, on board, engineering, station and ticket office roles.’

 
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