Railway stations will be manned less often if a new plan is given the green light.
 
South West Trains has announced that it is consulting customers about reducing ticket office opening hours.

The station ticket office cuts will affect Ash, Ash Vale, Camberley, Frimley and Woking stations, among others.

If the plans are agreed, there will be no staff at Frimley and Ash stations on Saturdays and Camberley station will be unmanned from 1.20pm on weekdays.

The plans have been criticised by Surrey Heath MP Michael Gove, a regular train user.

He has written to the company to express his concern about the cuts, which he called “indefensible”. It is the second letter he has written – though he has not received a reply to his first, which was sent before the affected stations were announced. 

Mr Gove said: “Concerns about the poor quality of the service continue to crop up in emails, in letters and in surgery. Since these closures were announced, I’ve had even more constituents expressing their concerns. A, they don’t want these changes and B, it adds insult to injury.

“The Cinderella service that my constituents are already getting should not be made worse,” he said.

South West Trains said they had not reviewed staffing levels in 10 years and that more people were using vending machines.

The also promised to improve their vending service. The company said in a statement: “These proposals come alongside a £12million investment in a new generation of ticket vending machines, which offer a range of ticket types, including weekly seasons and rail card discounts.

“Later this year the machines will start to offer a ticket on departure facility, allowing passengers to purchase their ticket by telephone and simply collect from the machine.

“We are also looking to make changes to the machines’ software to allow the purchase of tickets for the following day.

Mr Gove dismissed the idea that it was futile to try to change the company’s stance.

He said he hoped that by making the case for retaining the service early, he could stop the cuts from taking place.

“We’ve got to campaign because if you simply accept what they’re doing then the service will suffer.”

He said other campaigns in his constituency, including one he led to prevent Post Office closures in Surrey Heath, had been successful.

Rushmoor councillor Mike Roberts, who represents residents in Aldershot’s Heron Wood ward, was also critical of cuts to staffing levels at ticket offices. He said members of staff were much more likely to be able to help people who had more complicated journeys to make.
 
“The information is just not sophisticated enough on the ticket machines,” he said.

Although there are no proposed changes to Aldershot station’s ticket office opening hours, Coun Roberts said customers were getting increasingly frustrated by problems with buying tickets there.

“The ticket office is not open until 6.20am. There are two ticket machines, and it’s a surprise if they are both working. So by 6.30am, if there’s just one, you’ll have a big queue. Some people will get on the train without paying and they will be liable for a penalty.

“But you must not penalise people who haven’t paid for tickets when machinery breaks down.”

In a statement, South West Trains said: “Although recent research, carried out by ourselves and PassengerFocus, indicated that 91 per cent of people queuing at ticket offices could have purchased their tickets from a machine, we appreciate that some passengers prefer the human touch, particularly if they have a complicated journey inquiry.

“Clearly these passengers can either make their inquiry while the ticket office is open, or have the choice of ringing our Customer Service Centre from the comfort of their own home.

“More and more people are also choosing to buy their ticket through the internet – another area we are looking to develop further.”

South West Trains also said it would invest in more CCTV coverage so that more customers would feel safe.

Their statement said: “We are currently investing in installing CCTV at all our mainland stations and on all our trains. We have also introducing a new team of Rail Community Officers to patrol our network, supported and managed by a dedicated team of British Transport Police officers – this investment is in the region of £1.8 million per year.”