The booking offices at Plymouth and Exeter St David’s railway stations are set to close later next year in plans revealed by Great Western Railway.

As part of changes on how railway stations operate, GWR has announced that the vast majority of its booking offices at stations across Cornwall and beyond will close between September 2024 and December 2024. A reduction in open windows will begin between October 2023 and June 2024.

The two stations are popular starting points for long distance railway travel for residents of Launceston, Bude and surrounding areas, which were left with no railway services after the Beeching Report of 1963 condemned them to closure.

GWR says that staff which are currently based in the ticket offices will be released to work on other areas of the stations and there will be a range of ways people can still purchase tickets for travel, including by telephone, online at their website, using the GWR app and using the vending machines at the stations.

There will be no impact on staffing hours, which will remain the same as present and in addition, customer access to station facilities such as waiting rooms and toilets is unaffected by these changes.

In statistics detailing the justification for closing the ticket office at Plymouth, the railway operator said that during the financial year 2022 to 2023, only 16.1% of tickets sold at the station were done so through its ticket office.

At Exeter St David’s, only 12.1% of tickets were booked at a ticket office during the same time period.

This was in comparison to 81.2% and 86.5% of tickets booked online at the two stations respectively, says GWR. The plans are currently subject to consultation by the Transport Focus group and people can engage with the consultation at https://www.transportfocus.org.uk/train-station-ticket-office-consultation/

A spokesperson for GWR said: “Digital tickets have made it easier and faster for customers to buy and manage tickets online, which means fewer people than ever are using ticket offices.

"With 85% of ticket sales taking place outside a ticket office on the GWR network, we think it makes sense to put our people where they can be most help to customers.

“This consultation is designed to allow the public to test and examine our proposals, and make sure our plans are compliant with the safeguards put in place at privatisation so that the needs of customers will still be met.”

The proposals, however, were slammed by the railway union RMT, whose General Secretary Mick Lynch said: "The decision to close up to 1,000 ticket offices and to issue hundreds of redundancy notices to staff is a savage attack on railway workers, their families and the travelling public.

"Travellers will be forced to rely on apps and remote mobile teams to be available to assist them rather than having trained staff on stations.

"This is catastrophic for elderly, disabled and vulnerable passengers trying to access the rail network.

“The arrangements for ticket office opening hours, set out in Schedule 17 of the Ticketing and Settlement Agreement, are the only statutory regulation of station staffing.

“It is crystal clear that the government and train companies want to tear up this agreement and pave the way for a massive de-staffing of the rail network.

"Some of the train operators issuing our members with statutory redundancy notices today are cutting two thirds of their workforce.

"It is clear that the whole enterprise of closing ticket offices has got nothing to do with modernisation and is a thinly veiled plan to gut our railways of station staff.

"Fat cat rail operators and the government do not care one jot about passenger safety, or a well-staffed and friendly railway open to all to use

"They want to cut costs, make profits for shareholders, and run the network into the ground without a thought as to the vital role the rail industry plays in the country's economy.

"RMT is mounting a strong industrial, and political campaign to resist ticket office closures and station staff cuts. And we will continue our fight on July 20, 22 and 29 when 20,000 railway workers on the train operators go on strike."

For more information on how to take part in the consultation, visit: www.gwr.com/haveyoursay