Letter: “South Western Railway’s plans to close ticket offices are ironic.”

Further to your item in last week’s paper about ticket offices facing the axe, this is certainly true for Lymington Town.

From a ticket office manned for almost 45 hours per week, we will have an on-platform person, but available only for 20 hours per week, not at all on Sunday and Monday, and at best only until 10am on days when they are there.

How can this possibly match up to South Western Railway saying “We want to provide greater visibility of colleagues for customers throughout our stations.” Irony or what?

How can the proposals possibly help those who are not tech savvy and who value the current service we get? The people who plan ahead outside of ‘peak’ hours: families, leisure travellers, the less able, senior citizens? Not to mention incoming visitors and holiday makers.

SWR needs to urgently rethink its proposals and engage with the local community in a meaningful way. If there is a logic to its proposal for Lymington Town, then it must explain it to us.

Alastair Mann

Lymington