SOUTHEASTERN’S ticket offices are closed for up to 99 per cent of their opening hours, RMT union has found.

The rail union found that between between June 2024 to January this year, the publicly owned rail operator’s ticket offices were closed for around 70,000 hours when they should have been open.

Data obtained through a Freedom of Information request also showed that ticket offices were open for only 1 per cent or fewer of their advertised hours at five stations.

A total of 17 ticket offices were closed for at least 50 per cent of their scheduled hours.

RMT general secretary Mick Lynch said: “Our findings show a shocking picture of Southeastern’s failure to open ticket offices as advertised which is a clear breach of their obligations.

“Passengers, particularly those who are elderly, disabled or less able to navigate unstaffed stations, are being left without the support they need and will potentially be put off from using the railway altogether.”

David Wornham, passenger services director at Southeastern, said: “Any claims that we are trying to reduce reliance on ticket offices across our network are wholly inaccurate.

“The actual situation is quite the reverse. The most recent data shows we met over 85% of our scheduled ticket office opening hours in the last four-week period – a record high following the pandemic and the national ticket office consultation.

“We have a total of 141 ticket offices and have doubled our training capacity to support our unprecedented recruitment drive which has seen just under 100 new colleagues introduced in our ticket offices in the last 12 months and we expect that number to continue to grow in the coming weeks, with a further 20 roles currently being advertised.

Southeastern is a growing railway. We added 220 trains a week to our timetable in December and we are currently running a £2m programme of station improvements with deep cleans.

“We are offering over 400 apprenticeships this year and we will shortly open a new recruitment and training centre in Ashford as we recruit more people for trainee driver, on board, engineering, station and ticket office roles.”