Lib Dems vote to stop Ticket Office Closures

Long Eaton Station looks set to lose both the Toilets (planned by the Conservatives to be delivered by Labour), and the Ticket office (planned by the Conservatives).  The closure of the toilet is a simple cost saving measure, planned without asking who uses the toilets, largely those with disabilities or medical conditions and parents of babies to change them and young children.  Often those that need to use the trains.

It is a similar story with the Ticket Office where the conservatives have taken the view that because 7 out of 8 journeys now are bought from the ticket machines or online the ticket office are no longer viable.  They have failed to ask why 1 in 8 journeys that is well over 100 million journeys nationwide are bought form the ticket office.  In engineering problem solving there is the 5-Why technique where you are encouraged to ask the question why five times to ensure you get to the root of an issue.  Why? Well some people don’t like or can’t use the ticket machines or online systems.  Why?  Because they are older, disabled including blind or have some other difficulty operating those systems.  If you remove ticket offices you end up making it very hard even impossible for these people who can’t potentially can’t drive form using the trains.  It only took 2 Why’s to get to why this is an unfair thing to do.

Erewash Lib Dems Chair and Conference Attendee, James Archer said:  “I was pleased to vote for an amendment at Conference to make it Lib Dem policy to call for an end to the ticket office closures programme as it disproportionately affects vulnerable rail users.”

“As a Lib Dem campaigner I will fight hard to make sure these cuts which could be illegal under the Equality Act do not go ahead, so that everyone has fair access to our rail system.”