Amended Motion 25
Save Scottish Ticket Offices
“That this Congress notes that:
- the Scottish Government propose to reduce opening hours at 101 ticket offices across Scotland;
- the evidence base for the proposals is a 2022 consultation, the contributions to which overwhelmingly opposed reducing opening hours;
- the 2023 Gilruth report on women and girls’ experiences of personal safety on public transport said that service managers should ‘explore the feasibility of increasing staff presence at both points of boarding, alighting and interchange, as well as the possibility of increasing on board staff presence’; and
- similar proposals to close ticket offices were made in England by the previous Conservative Government and were rightly defeated by the campaign to save our ticket offices.
Congress believes that:
- these reductions will make our stations less safe for women and girls travelling alone or at night, less accessible for disabled passengers, and less supportive of the elderly or vulnerable passengers seeking assistance with their journey;
- they contradict the conclusions of the 2023 Gilruth report and the contributions to the consultation on which they are apparently based;
- while the Scottish Government has claimed staffing reductions will not be made at 47 of the 101 affected stations, these proposals create a backdoor to cuts later, without any public consultation; and
- to meet our climate obligations and facilitate a modal shift to green public transport, the Scottish Government should be expanding access to rail, not creating barriers to using it.
“Congress resolves to campaign:
- to keep ticket offices open;
- against any future staff reductions at stations; and
- for a transport system that is safe and accessible to all.”
Mover: Transport Salaried Staffs’ Association
Seconder: STUC Disabled Workers Conference
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