War of words over railway ticket office closure

MP dismisses 'hypocrisy' jibe

Torbay MP Kevin Foster has insisted there is no conflict between his campaign to save Paignton’s railway station ticket office and an answer he gave in the House of Commons in which he endorsed the overall nationwide package of closures.

Mr Foster has backed a local petition calling for Paignton’s ticket office to be spared the axe in view of the number of people still using it, despite falling numbers elsewhere in the country.

But answering a parliamentary question in September last year from Warrington Labour MP Charlotte Nichols, he said: “Our reforms will enable us to move staff out of underused ticket offices and provide help where it’s most needed in the station.”

Mr Foster was a transport minister at the time.

While nationally fewer than 15 per cent of tickets are now bought at ticket offices, Paignton has one of the highest percentages of passengers still using them. Over the last year, two in five (41 per cent) of tickets for trains leaving Paignton – 75,595 in all – were sold at the station’s ticket office.

Councils across the westcountry have joined the campaign to save ticket offices.

Teignbridge Council has voted unanimously to oppose ticket office closures, and councils in Torbay and North Devon have added their voices to the protests.

Mr Foster’s political opponents say his answer in parliament is not consistent with the MP’s current campaign to save the ticket office at Paignton.

Torbay councillor Steve Darling, who will stand for the Liberal Democrats against Mr Foster at the next general election, said: “He is saying one thing in Westminster and something completely different here in his constituency. It’s hypocritical.”

But Mr Foster insisted there was ‘no conflict at all’.

He said: “The figures at Paignton speak for themselves. They indicate a continuing demand and not an underused service.

“Yet nationally there are locations where ticket offices sell very few tickets or only a very small percentage of passengers at a station still use them, especially where contactless travel on bankcards or smart phones is available more widely in a region.

“But this is not the case here in our bay or for that matter in other locations across our region such as Barnstaple, where the usage of the ticket office by passengers remains high.”