Cumbria Better Connected group urge Transport Secretary to reject ticket office closure plans

The Cumbria Better Connected campaign group have written to the Transport Secretary Mark Harper, urging him to reject plans put forward by rail companies to close ticket offices and significantly reduce staffing hours at stations in the county.

The letter is signed by Westmorland and Lonsdale MP and group chair Tim Farron, Barrow and Furness MP Simon Fell, and also representatives from the RMT, Cumbria Tourism, Morecambe Bay Partnership, Ulverston BID, Cumbria Local Enterprise Partnership, local rail user groups and local councillors.

In the letter the group emphasise the importance of ticket offices to people who are elderly or who have disabilities, and to the millions of visitors who come to Cumbria and the Lake District every year.

They also highlight the enormous proposed reduced staffing hours at stations in Cumbria such as:

• Ulverston station, where mobility scooter users and people in wheelchairs are dependent on staff to assist them across the tracks to access Platform 3, will be staffed for just two hours a day and not at all on Sundays.

• Grange-over-Sands station, situated in a town with a largely elderly population, will be staffed for just two hours a day and not at all on Sundays.

• Windermere station, home to one of Britain's biggest visitor destinations, will be staffed for just three and a half hours a day and not at all on Sundays.

• Oxenholme station, with connections to London, Scotland, Manchester Airport and the Lake District, is set to be staffed for 10.5 fewer hours a week than currently.

Writing to Mark Harper, the group say: "At a time when we desperately need to be encouraging people back onto the railways following the years of the COVID pandemic and to help us reduce our carbon emissions, we fear that these damaging set of proposals will do the exact opposite.

"Times are changing, and we recognise that more people are buying their tickets online. However, many of the proposals put forward by Avanti will significantly reduce the hours that stations are staffed, while many of the proposals put forward by Northern will essentially remove rail staff from stations altogether.

"This is against the clear guidance given by you and the Rail Minister when shaping this consultation. It will severely impair visitors' travel, and make previously accessible stations inaccessible. It will also clearly lead to local job losses as a result.

"With that in mind we urge you to stand by rail staff and stations and urge Northern and Avanti to re-think their retrograde and short-sighted proposals."