Letter: ‘Robust argument is needed over Lymington rail station ticket office closure plan.’

I was so pleased to see so many people at the protest meeting about Lymington station’s ticket office.

South Western Railway (SWR) have declared that they want to “modernise our retail offer”. What they don’t say is that they are proposing to cut the staff hours by 50%.

Although I fully support the local campaign, I feel we need to ensure that the argument is robust as well as offering some positive thoughts on the proposals.

At the meeting, it was suggested that “staff are on hand to sell tickets and assist passengers”. The proposals, if adopted, will not change this. Cllr England commented that “having the ticket office open gives people a place to meet” as well as a warm place in the winter. There is no proposal to shut the station building, just the ticket office.

Comments about ticket machines breaking down and phones running out of battery do not help the cause. If the ticket machine isn’t working passengers can buy tickets on the train and there are other ways of paying – a card or even cash!

Don Mackenzie’s points are very pertinent. Public transport connectivity is very poor in Lymington. The Lymington Society and Bottom of Town Group have been campaigning on this for a long while.

I think we should try and look for some positive outcomes to the proposals. In my 30 years of travelling to and from Lymington, I have never seen the ticket office staff. Wouldn’t it be so much better to see the staff on the platform and in the station building selling tickets and giving advice?

The real issue is the severe reduction in hours when staff will be present. Trains run into Lymington Town station 108 hours a week. Currently, the ticket office is open for 43 hours a week. SWR’s “modernising retail offer” is to reduce staff time to 20 hours a week, two days with no staff at all. This is totally unacceptable when we are trying to get people onto public transport.

We could do so much more to improve public transport in town: a bus stop at the bottom of Station Street; increase staff time at Lymington, not a reduction; ensure that all staff are disability trained; a taxi advert displayed as well as a taxi rank; and extending the X1 & X2 to the ferry terminal to connect direct to Pennington, Barton, Highcliffe and Ashley.

Jerry Weber

Pennington