The McNulty report on railway costs could lead to the complete closure of or cutbacks at hundreds of railway ticket offices.
Knowing what social problems unstaffed stations cause in inner-city London, local residents have launched a campaign to protect the existing staffed stations in Hackney.
The Staff Our Stations campaign is organising a public meeting at the Old Fire Station, 61 Leswin Road, Stoke Newington N16 7NX at 18.30 on Monday 12 December 2011.
Ticket offices at Hackney Wick, Homerton, Rectory Road, Stamford Hill and Stoke Newington could close altogether, while staff are likely to be cut at Hackney Central, Dalston Kingsland and Clapton.
Throughout the country nearly 600 ticket offices could close if the Government allows train operators to follow the advice of the McNulty “rail value for money” report.
Sir Roy McNulty, who is reported to have “a love affair with the aviation industry”, has recommended that train operators should consider closing 591 category E station ticket offices.
He has also advised operators to cut back the opening hours at 266 category D stations. He suggests that they need to be open only from 07.00 to 10.00, because that is when most tickets are sold.
His ‘Realising the Potential of GB Rail’ report, which cost £3 million, has been described by one rail campaigner as radical tinkering.
Most rail campaigners know rail costs have risen by between three and four times because of privatisation. Inefficiencies have been built into the system. Waste is the result of a fragmented system of multiple operators, complicated contractual relationships and the diversion of taxpayers’ cash into company profits and dividends.
McNulty’s remedy is to give train operators – who have not covered themselves with glory – greater “commercial freedom” while calling for curbs on rail workers’ pay.
There is no criticism in the report of company profits or management salaries. A former rail worker said: “I suggest Sir Roy spends three months in a track gang including nights and weekends, three months in a booking office at a station where the passengers get upset, and three months in a traffic control office, and absolutely no time at all with the in-house economists or any other kind of guru.”
The annual subsidy to the railways is said to be £5.2 billion with fare payers contributing £6.2 billion a year. But the Government is happy to carry on with its conspiracy of silence about the massive hidden subsidies given to roads and the airline industry.
Check if Sir Roy wants your ticket office to close: http://bit.ly/jaOESB