We have started 2022 facing a cost of living crisis with rising energy costs, rising food bills, and rising taxation, all of which has been compounded by increasing costs to travel on our railways.

West Dunbartonshire is well served by train stations and rail travel could be pivotal in reducing our car use and carbon emissions.

So why are the Scottish Government punishing hard-working people in West Dunbartonshire by hiking up fares, cancelling services and putting on trains with fewer carriages, leading to overcrowding, which they have been doing for a number of years?

Now they are planning on shutting ticket offices.

These appalling plans have been pushed through at a time when the guidance has been for people to work from home so less passengers have been on the trains and around the stations where the proposals are being advertised.

The data on which the plans are based is entirely flawed and show only limited numbers of people buying tickets but they do not look into the bigger picture. They don’t, for example, consider the knowledge of people working at ticket offices to allow people to select the best value ticket for their needs. Without this, passengers will pay even higher prices than necessary and will be priced out of using trains.

The data does not consider the assistance which staff provide to people who have mobility problems. Having staff at the station is invaluable to those requiring ramps or that little bit of extra help to alight the train. Without this, older people and those with mobility problems will be effectively frozen out of using rail services.

And what about safety? There is no doubt that having open, visible ticket offices provides a deterrent for people intent on causing bother at stations, whether this be vandalism, antisocial behaviour or attacks on other rail users. This proposed move will undermine the safety of people who have to travel in the evening, especially those travelling alone.

We need decent public transport if we are to tackle climate change and get people out of their cars. We have great rail infrastructure in our area, what we don’t have is a decent first-rate rail service. For years we have had to put up with trains running late, stop skipping, short-formed carriages and sometimes no trains at all. The services have reduced during Covid and now prices have increased. We are now paying more for less and they want to take our stations away.

Scottish Labour argued for public ownership of ScotRail. The SNP government must now deliver better services that are affordable and reliable and let’s start by keeping our ticket offices open.