SARAH Dyke MP has called on the government to use the previously allocated HS2 funds to save local station ticket offices in her constituency – including the ticket station in Frome.
Ticket offices at local stations face being shut down under current plans as the Rail Delivery Group say there has been a “collapse in numbers of people using ticket offices” in recent years. Sarah Dyke has previously written to the Secretary of State for Transport to urge him to prevent the closure of local ticket offices as she says that elderly and disabled rail users are especially reliant on ticket offices to ensure they get the support they need when using the rail network.
With tens of billions of pounds for the Northern leg for HS2 now going unspent, Somerton and Frome’s Liberal Democrat MP has called on the government to use those funds to save ticket offices that have come under threat of closure.
Sarah Dyke said, “This Conservative government has utterly neglected vital transport projects, both here in Somerton and Frome and across the country. This shambles over HS2 should at least mean that ticket offices are saved.
“Elderly and vulnerable people face uncertainty when they go to the train station with no ticket offices and many are left isolated in our community, struggling to leave their homes with insufficient local transport links.
“Just like northern areas no longer benefiting from HS2, our community has been taken for granted at every turn by the Conservative Party. This extra money for transport links must urgently be invested in rectifying this situation. That means, saving Somerton and Frome’s ticket offices with the funds from the abandoned Northern leg.
“A failure to do so would be another slap in the face for all those that have suffered at the hands of this Conservative government.”
