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News Rail office just the ticket Smart card for bus travellers


SNODLAND station has a smart new ticket office after 30 years without one. The office is part of a £1.1m refur- bishment of the station, which has seen a big increase in passengers since high speed services began stopping there last year. The ticket office closeddownthree decades ago, but was re-opened whenMPTracey Crouch performed the opening of the new-look station building. More parking spaces have also been created in an upgrade of the station forecourt. Miss Crouch said: “It’s fantastic


that the station ticket office is in use again. This is much needed as hous- ing developments in the area are


Southeastern managing director David Statham with Tracey Crouch at Snodland station


completed, seeing more people use the station. This is a very welcome investment in Snodland.” David Statham, managing director


at Southeastern, said: “We are over the moon to be re-opening the sta- tion ticket office and upgrading the station building. We want to give


passengerswhouse the station a bet- ter experience.” The work was jointly funded by


the Department for Transport with £600,000 from its national station im- provement programme, with £485,000 from KCC and £32,000 from Railway Heritage Trust.


TONBRIDGE and Malling MP Tom Tugendhat MP has welcomed the government’s announcement that Southern and Southeastern services passengers will be able to claim compensation if they are more than 15 minutes late. Currently, trains must be 30


MP welcomes changes to fare compensation Mr Tugendhat (below) said: “This


minutes late before repayment can be claimed. The new system will be introduced on Southern services within months.


is something I have campaigned on for a long time and am pleased that the government is taking action which will help commuters across Tonbridge, Edenbridge and


Malling. Of course, this announcement alone will not solve the problems we face on our rail


BUS users across the county can nowbuy an Oyster-style travel card. But the pay-as-you-go Smartcard


– a joint initiative between Kent County Council andMedway Coun- cil, allowing passengers to pay and top-up their card as they travel – has been criticised by passengers for fail- ing to include one of the country’s main service providers, Arriva. The card can be topped up online,


at certain libraries or on the bus, with an auto top-up option. It is accepted by operators Nu-Venture, Autocar, Chalkwell, ASD, County Connect, Farleigh and Go-Coach, but Arriva says it it trialling its own easy pay- ment solution. Arriva’smarketing director Simon


lines. I shall continue to campaign for a better connection on the Maidstone East line, amore reliable service on the Tonbridge line and for Southern and the RMT to finally sort out their problems. “However, this announcement is


welcome news and shows that the government understand the problems which plague commuters, likeme and many thousands of people inWest Kent.”


Baxter said: “KCC was aware that we are working on ourownsolution for release across theUKin 2017 and we can’t afford to make the invest- ment twice.” KCCcabinetmemberfor transport Matthew Balfour said: “Our aim with this card is to make it effortless for passengers to travel on different routes, with multiple operators and this, we hope, will provide a viable alternative to the car journey.” In the long term, KCC hopes its smartcard will be expanded to in- clude train journeys and bike and car hire.


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