Badenoch and Strathspey will fight ScotRail's ticket office cutbacks
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The fight has been launched to secure proper opening hours at the two remaining railway ticket offices in Badenoch and Strathspey.
Community and business leaders have vowed to fight the proposed ScotRail cuts revealed in last week’s Strathy.
Rail bosses insist online bookings have taken business away from counters but campaigners argue they still have an important role.
The fast approaching February 2 deadline for responses is galvanising local action.
As part of the review, the Aviemore station and Kingussie’s in particular would see significant reductions in ticket office opening times.
Highland councillor Pippa Hadley (Scottish Greens) is disappointed and sang the praises of the home town’s rail counter service. She said: “The staff go above and beyond simply selling tickets.
“They maintain the station, keeping it safe in winter months, help visitors and locals to find competitive ticket prices, provide a warm waiting room to sit in on cold days plus a friendly face and provide a re-assuring sense of safety to travellers.
“It is counter-intuitive to remove the human face of rail travel in our rural stations. The consultation states that the figures used are from 2019, before the pandemic impacted travel.
“However, since the pandemic tourism and visitor numbers to the area have sky-rocketed, reaching levels familiar only to long-standing residents who remember well what tourism was like before flying abroad for vacations became the norm.
“To degrade our visitor experience discourages people from using our rail networks. It goes against the aim of attracting visitors to the area by carbon friendly rail.”
Ms Hadley said she would be objecting as a resident and as a councillor, adding: “I urge everyone to do the same to safeguard our manned stations for the benefit of all.”
Highland Council convener and local member Bill Lobban (Independent) said: “Local communities need to rally together to fight this. Unless we do these cuts will just continue and we will end up with completely unmanned stations.”
Aviemore community councillor and concerned rail traveller, Joe Kirby, said: “
It is evident that the Scottish Government view the public ownership model the same way Abellio see the private ownership – poorly funded , poorly staffed and poorly run. We should be encouraging people to use trains rather than throw people back into cars.”
Kingussie Community Council chairman Ruaridh Ormiston said it was sad news and the watchdog will be giving its responses to the consultation in no uncertain terms.
Ailsa Schofield, the strath’s local representative on the Highland Main Line Community Rail Partnership, said: “It will seriously impact on all of the staffed ticket offices. The views of anyone using the train are vital as these cuts will affect them and they should be making them known.”
ScotRail described the move as “realigning resources with customer demand” and there would be no compulsory job losses. It said its review showed that “ticket offices are staffed for significant periods where very few if any tickets are sold”. Its aim is to redeploy staff to locations and times with higher demand. More details at www.scotrail.co.uk/scotrail-ticket-office-consultation
