GWR To Provide Agency Staff To Assist At Yeovil Pen Mill Station

Hello All

I just thought I’d provide a quick update. The petition is growing and now has 544 signatures - thank you  all for your continued support.

GWR have informed me that unfortunately the Ticket Office at Yeovil Pen Mill station will continue to have reduced staffing hours until later in the year. This is because the station currently only has one permanent member of staff following the retirement of the other in May and a replacement not being recruited in time. I believe the Ticket Office is currently being staffed 07:20 to 15:20 weekdays, 07:20 to 14:10 Saturdays and is closed Sundays (though I guess there is always a risk this may be altered again). The reduced hours mean the Ticket Office is unfortunately losing around 17 hours 55 minutes staffing a week which is greatly concerning. I am aware that the one member of permanent staff the station has has been working above their contracted hours to try and keep the Ticket Office running as much as possible so thank you to them.

GWR have also let me know that when the permanent member of staff is not available at the station during its scheduled staffing hours (07:20 to 18:25 weekdays. 07:20 to 14:10 Saturdays and 14:30 to 17:00 Sundays) an Agency member of staff will be there to assist with Passenger Assistance. Their role will be to assist passengers who need accompanying/help to cross either the barrow crossing or stepped footbridge. They will not be trained to deploy ramps or sell tickets. The member of staff who the Agency sends may vary from day to day but I have been told they will try to keep this as consistent as possible. This arrangement started on Monday 29th June and my understanding is this will be in place until the replacement permanent member of staff has been recruited and finished their training. Hopefully this will help disabled, elderly and other passengers to be able to continue using the station.

Prior to the above information being provided to me I had requested a meeting with the Accessibility Manager at GWR and I still feel it would be useful to have this meeting however he is refusing to meet with me. I understand the local MP Adam Dance has secured a meeting with a Director from GWR but unfortunately the MP will not allow me to attend - I can understand if they did not want me present for all of the meeting but feel I should at least be allowed to attend part of it.

As the Station Manager for Yeovil Pen Mill is based at Westbury I have suggested to GWR that it would be good if he could spend some time on the frontline at the station and/or run some Meet The Manager sessions at the station so that passengers who use Pen Mill can meet him and discuss any feedback with him. Unfortunately GWR have provided no response to this suggestion.

i have been concerned that during my discussions with GWR they have indicated that Yeovil Pen Mill is an insignificant station to them. They are carefully monitoring the footfall at the station and the number of booked Passenger Assistance requests and appear to feel that these are not high enough to satisfy them. The station always seems to be being well used when I am there - please use it if you can.

Central GWR and the local MP (who was supposed to be monitoring the staffing situation at the station) need to keep their eyes much more on the ball to ensure the situation which has occurred recently (and is ongoing) re staffing never occurs again.

Apologies this update has been longer than planned. I will update again when the need arises

Take care and best wishes

Kath