Leaked London Midland documents show cuts led by profit over safety

The RMT rail union today published leaked internal documents showing that London Midland plan to profit to the tune of £1.25 million a year from a programme of cuts to ticket offices and staffing.

London Midland are blazing a trail for the McNulty plans to axe ticket offices and eliminate station staff. Leaked financial reports, marked confidential show that the company plan to make a cash profit of one and quarter million pounds from the ticket office closures in the face of total opposition from staff, passengers, transport groups and disability organisations.

The London Midland plans would close a dozen ticket offices completely, result in savage cuts at 86 out of ninety offices and threaten over 100 jobs. They have been opposed by 18,000 people in responses to the public consultation along with passenger groups, statutory monitors, disabled groups and politicians.

RMT General Secretary Bob Crow said that “These leaked documents show that for vandalising ticket offices and destroying jobs across the service London Midland and its shareholders stand to profit to the tune of £1.25 million. We warned from the leaked DfT emails that this was a “cash for closures” programme and the extent of the money that the company plan to rake in from this scandalous assault on jobs and services is now laid bare.”

He continued “Passengers, staff, politicians and user groups will be rightly angry when they see what this trail-blazer for the McNulty cuts means in cash terms for the profiteering private rail companies and we will be using this information to jack up the national campaign of resistance to ticket office closures.”