Local MP calls for HS2 money to fund station ticket offices
Lib Dem Sarah Dyke says the money saved for the HS2 scale-back should be used to fund ticket offices
Last updated 7th Oct 2023
It's claimed money being saved from not building the second part of HS2, could be used to fund train station ticket offices.
The call's come from Somerton and Frome Lib Dem MP Sarah Dyke - after the high speed rail project was scaled back.
She has previously written to the Secretary of State for Transport to urge him to prevent the closure of local ticket offices.
Ms Dyke says: “This Conservative government has utterly neglected vital transport projects, both here in Somerton & 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 & 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.”
Plans - announced this week at the Tory party conference - will see a new train line and station at Wellington in Somerset.