A senior local Councillor has expressed his opposition to proposals to close railway ticket offices in St Helen's borough in Merseyside.
The government and train operating companies announced their intention to permanently close ticket offices at Earlestown, Eccleston Park, Garswood, Lea Green, Newton-le-Willows, Rainhill, St Helens Junction and Thatto Heath.
While the government claims that the closures will ‘modernise' customer service, by making passengers use self-service machines and contactless cards instead of buying tickets from the offices, Labour Councillor Seve Gomez-Aspron MBE, Deputy Leader of St Helens Borough Council and Cabinet Member for Strategic Transport, takes a different view.
Cllr Gomez-Aspron argues that public and passenger reassurance relies heavily on the presence of publicly-facing staff, and that elderly and disabled people people particularly need to be able to locate help easily. He contends that closing all but one ticket office in the area may reduce the independence of many local residents who currently use public transport.
He will submit a motion on the issue to the next full meeting of St Helens Borough Council, which will enable the council to respond within the twenty-one-day consultation period.
Cllr Gomez-Aspron explained that, “As a council, we recognise the significant influence our borough has played throughout history – arguably being the birthplace of the railway -which is why we have successfully lobbied for improvements in our infrastructure, resulting in state-of-the-art stations at Newton-le-Willows and Lea Green which is being built now with a ticket office that will never open.
“They've closed the ticket offices in most cases before the consultation period has even started. I call on the government to reconsider these unpopular plans and would urge residents to take part in the consultation to make their feelings known too.”
ithink the way we are now is finethe way it is why change something that works well,also the money that will be spent on a new bulding could be put to better use as it want so long ago that we spent money on the glass done for the train station and this money could be spent on our housing as we continue to suggle to help the homeless and the pepole weho have bigger familys and can not get houses and bugalows as many so many of us suggle also with diabiaties to ,dislexa and are disabled to as i cant see any pepole who are normal keep bending down to buy to by a ticket as im sure they will forget about pepole in wheelchars being able to reach up for a ticket just thinking about everbody as this needs to be talked about and thinking of .