Harrogate and Knaresborough MP Andrew Jones has called on his Liberal Democrat rival to apologise for wrongly claiming Harrogate train station ticket office was due to close.
Rail operator Northern said this morning it planed to shut 131 ticket offices — but Harrogate’s would be one of 18 to remain open. It is part of a nationwide cull of hundreds of ticket offices.
Some four hours after the news was announced, Tom Gordon, the Lib Dem prospective parliamentary candidate for Harrogate and Knaresborough, published a press release titled ‘Lib Dems call on rail bosses to save Harrogate ticket office’.
It said the “the closure of the ticket office at Harrogate station will lock so many people out of being able to access tickets and travel by train” and urged the government and rail leaders to “think again”.
Not closing: Harrogate train station ticket office.
An hour later Harrogate and Knaresborough Lib Dems issued an ‘updated press release’ in which Mr Gordon called for “reassurances on the future of Harrogate ticket office”.
His initial press release prompted Mr Jones to say:
“Harrogate ticket office is remaining open. It doesn’t need saving. It was never threatened with closure.
“Assuming they didn’t know the facts, although this may just be political scaremongering, all the Liberal Democrats had to do was read the Stray Ferret, any other local news outlet or my Community News website and they would have known the actual situation.
“The news had been up on those sites for hours before they issued their erroneous press release. An apology to the customers and staff who have been worried by this false claim would seem to be an appropriate thing to do.”
The Stray Ferret asked Mr Gordon for a response to Mr Jones’ comments and whether he would issue an apology but had not received a response by the time of publication.
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