Just the ticket? Not if SWT have their way!

South West Trains (SWT) are set to announce reduced ticket office opening times later this month. Although the plans won't affect Putney Station, they are going to hit Barnes Station and Wandsworth Town, which many constituents around the edges of our area use.

Under the SWT proposals, Barnes Station will have its ticket office closed for six and-a-half hours more on Saturdays, closed entirely on Sundays, and during the week cut back by half an hour.

Wandsworth Town is even harder hit: during the week the ticket office here will be open three and-a-half hours less and will be closed entirely on both Saturday and Sunday.

These plans are bad news. Unstaffed stations increase the potential for vandalism, graffiti and other crime making them unwelcoming for the public. That's especially true for Barnes Station which is very isolated, set in the midst of Barnes Common.

Wandsworth Town is already an unpleasant and virtually unstaffed station, with its dingy, foreboding subway - and given the huge riverside developments either side of Wandsworth Bridge, the new housing at the top of East Hill and the plans for the Ram Brewery site we should be talking about expanding capacity here, not cutting it back.

If you'd like to protest these closure plans, you can sign my online petition here. Every response I get strengthens the case against closure, so please sign up.