Staff shortages: SWR ticket offices close for entire weeks
TICKET offices at stations run by South Western Railway are being closed for days - or even whole weeks - in succession because of a shortage of staff.
The company says it is recruiting more staff, but this process will take months. The result is that some smaller stations that are normally staffed are left without any employees either in the ticket office or on the platform.
An SWR staff member supplied RAIL with a detailed breakdown of every ticket office closure from October to shortly before Christmas.
Worst hit has been Micheldever, in Hampshire, which has been closed entirely for five of the past eight weeks, and for at least three days in each of the remaining weeks. The ticket office should be open during every morning rush hour.
Other ticket offices which have been closed for entire weeks this autumn include St Denys (for five weeks), Swaythling, Hedge End and Parkstone.
Ticket offices that have closed for days include Hook, Winchester, Sway, Hamworthy, Wool, New Milton, Hinton Admiral, Christchurch, Pokesdown and Branksome.
Other stations are frequently closing early, often from midmorning for the rest of the day. These even include some larger stations, such as Farnborough Main, Eastleigh and Southampton Airport Parkway, as well as Woolston, Netley, Swanwick, Brockenhurst, Lymington Town and Dorchester South.
The result, in some cases, is passengers have been unable to buy tickets before boarding trains. As tickets are unchecked during many journeys, this means passengers arrive at a gateline on larger stations such as Southampton Central or Bournemouth with no proof of journey origin.
SWR told RAIL: “We know that recent changes in our station management teams have left the new South region temporarily short of relief staff. We are now in the process of recruiting new posts to address this.
“Additionally, we have experienced higher than usual staff turnover. We are now recruiting Customer Ambassadors, but the additional training they receive means it takes around four months before they are ready to deploy to stations. We are doing all we can to minimise the disruption to our customers.”
In a memo to its members on December 18, the RMT union stated: “There seems to be a complete reluctance by the company to fill vacancies, and a disregard by the company in fulfilling its franchise commitment.”
The union said it would raise the issue of de-staffing and ticket office closures as “a matter of urgency”. It said it would address rumours of ticket office reviews and “new ways of working.”
The staff member who contacted RAIL, who does not wish to be identified, pointed out that at the smaller stations the removal of the ticket office staff meant that no railway employees at all have been available to assist passengers, including those with restricted mobility.
He said that many of the stations which remain open for part of the day are now routinely unstaffed after the morning peak. Under an agreement called “Schedule 17” this is in breach of a franchise commitment.
SWR has not disputed the data supplied to RAIL.
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