At about 11:00 on Tuesday 31st October, the BBC started to report that plans to close ticket offices have been scrapped. See Plans to close rail ticket offices in England scrapped – BBC News . The most relevant quote is: “Transport Secretary Mark Harper said the government had asked train operators to withdraw their proposals because they failed to meet high passenger standards.”

The initial reaction of FoHS is “hooray”. We shall be listening to the news over the next few days, to make sure we understand what is going to happen and what is not going to happen. We plan to post some more news here, as it applies specifically to Handforth, after then.

Visit this page on our web-site to read more.

Well, we’ve done what we can.

The Friends of Handforth Station were devastated to hear in July that our ticket office might be closed. We have particular circumstances at our station (e.g. no step-free access to the existing ticket machine, e.g. only one ticket machine, e.g. no shelter for users of the ticket machine, e.g. CCTV not fully working) that add to the generic deficiencies of these proposals (e.g. no cash payments accepted, e.g. huge reduction in staffing hours).