Southeastern Railway could close 40 ticket offices in South London

By Joe Coughlan, Local Democracy Reporter

Southeastern Railway has revealed a list of 40 stations in South London that could have their ticket offices closed.

The rail company announced on July 5 that it was holding a consultation on the future of ticket offices across its network.

The proposals seek to close ticket offices at stations that reportedly sell fewer than 50 tickets at their windows daily and already have Pay As You Go services available.

The changes would also add “travel centres” to the 14 busiest stations on Southeastern’s network, providing travel information and ticketing solutions to commuters.

A Southeastern spokesman said that within the list of 40 stations at risk, 16 had sold ten or less tickets daily at their windows.

Sundridge Park station in Bromley sold no tickets, while Brixton, St Johns, New Beckenham and Lower Sydenham stations reportedly sold one ticket a day. The data was based on a four week period of ticket sales in May this year.

The statement said the change had been made to make staff more available to assist customers face-to-face and to continue the roll out of self-service technology.

They also said the initiative had been drawn up to save money, with the company seeing a reduction of 63 million journeys between 2019 and 2023.

They said: “We’ve been open that there is a cost saving element to this. We want to make sure our railway is sustainable for the future and reduce the costs associated with running the railway noting that we are a public sector organisation dependent upon a taxpayer subsidy of over £1million a day.”

The rail company said the change would also lead to fewer staff working at its medium and larger sized stations, but that ‘enhanced training’ will allow better support for customers overall.

They added that 18 stations that are currently unstaffed due to vacancies will have staff added to them, including Belvedere, Eden Park and Lower Sydenham.

The statement also said that the company plans to eventually close all ticket offices in South London, with a further 90 offices being addressed in a later consultation in autumn.

Consultations will be held with the public, unions and staff and will consider “all the potential options”, with proposed closures taking place over the next two years.

The London stations that would benefit from the new travel centres include St Pancras International, Charing Cross, Victoria, London Bridge, Bromley South and Dartford.

The news came the same day as the Rail Delivery Group announced proposals to move staff out of ticket offices onto station platforms to support “better, face-to-face interactions”.

Steve White, Southeastern’s managing director said: “The world has changed and Southeastern wants to change with it by offering a better, more reliable, and sustainable railway. An overhaul of the way we operate our stations is long overdue.”

“This consultation proposes making more of our people available to help customers face-to-face providing a wider range of support, including accessibility assistance and deterring anti-social behaviour. It proposes introducing 14 travel centres at our busiest stations and restaffing 18 stations, currently unstaffed due to vacancies.”

Pictured top: A Southeastern Rail train shown at Victoria station in London (Picture: Joe Coughlan)