Mayors remain committed to judicial review over plans to shut station ticket offices despite consultation extension
The Mayor of Greater Manchester has said he and four other combined authority mayors are continuing to pursue a judicial review of a consultation on railway ticket office closures, despite rail operators extending the consultation period.
Responding yesterday (26 July) to the decision to extend the consultation deadline, Mayor Andy Burnham said the extension was a "recognition that the three-week consultation period is a completely flawed process".
"But this extension is not enough", he added.
"The law is clear: a 12-week consultation is required on any proposal to close part of a station. The rail industry are simply extending a flawed process and for that reason, what has been announced will not stop our legal action."
He noted that rail operators would have to completely stop the consultation and begin again in order for him to drop the legal action, which partly argues that the operators had not followed the process set out in the Railway Act 2005.
Train companies launched individual consultations on 5 July, giving the public 21 days to respond to plans that would see staff move out of ticket offices and onto station platforms, concourses and ticket halls.
The consultation was met with almost immediate opposition from the following five combined authority mayors:
- Mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham;
- Mayor of West Yorkshire, Tracy Brabin;
- Mayor of Liverpool City-Region, Steve Rotheram;
- Mayor of South Yorkshire, Oliver Coppard; and
- Mayor of Cambridge and Peterborough, Dr Nik Johnson.
The mayors issued a pre-action protocol letter arguing that the changes could isolate disabled and older people and that the 21-day-long consultation period is "totally inadequate" for plans of this scale.
The Rail Delivery Group then announced it had extended the consultation to end on 1 September, bringing the full consultation period to just over 8 weeks.
Adam Carey
