TORY transport minister Huw Merriman took refuge in a northern railway station ticket office as protesters opposing government plans to shut them demonstrated outside the building today.

Mr Merriman, whose duties include responsibility for “rail transformation and reform and HS2,” was travelling on the historic Settle-Carlile railway when he was confronted by a welcoming committee of protesters at Appleby railway station in Cumbria.

They included members of rail union RMT and campaigners opposed to the ticket office closures, including at Appleby.

RMT organiser Craig Johnston, who was among them, told the Star: “He got off the train and we wanted to talk to him but he dodged us by running into the ticket office.

“We tried to speak to him through the ticket office window.”

A buffet had been prepared for Mr Merriman in the station’s waiting room, but it was hastily transferred by managers to the besieged ticket office.

As he enjoyed buns, cake and sandwiches behind a locked door the protesters plastered the ticket office windows with posters calling for the closure plans affecting almost 1,000 ticket offices to be abandoned, and for the rail workers’ dispute to be settled.

“They laid a right feed on for him,” said Mr Johnston. “He didn’t offer us any.

“We wanted to speak to him about the ticket office closures and to ask him why his government was prolonging our dispute when it would cost less to settle it than to keep it going. But he just locked himself away.

“He decided to come up north and he’s found that we’re not subservient to them up here.

“They’re planning to close all the ticket offices on the Settle-Carlile line and we want them kept open. 

“Hundreds of thousands of people have signed the petition against the ticket office closures.

“People in Cumbria also want to know why the government is spending money keeping the dispute going.”

The government has already been forced by the strength of protests and opposition to back-track on the closure plans by extending a three-week period allowed for public consultations.

The government is spending million of pounds of taxpayers’ money compensating privatised rail companies for money lost through strike action.

The Department for Transport was invited to comment.