130 London Midland jobs to go as ticket office hours cut

Ticket office opening hours at train stations will be slashed and 130 jobs will go at one of the West Midlands' biggest train companies, it emerged today.

London Midland is changing hours at 87 ticket offices, prompting major concern from transport chiefs.

Passengers will be forced to use self-service machines as the company looks to remove staff completely from nine stations and dramatically reduce numbers at many others.

Walsall station's ticket office will open at 6am weekdays, 15 minutes later than present.

It will close at 7pm instead of midnight.

Tame Bridge Parkway will be closed at 5pm instead of 11.50pm. Sandwell and Dudley's office will shut at 8pm instead of 12.15am, and at 7pm on weekends.

The Hawthorns, Smethwick Galton Bridge and Smethwick Rolfe Street will be shut in the afternoons.

Stourbridge Junction will shut at 8pm, Stourbridge Town at 5pm and Tipton's ticket office at 2pm.

Lye's ticket office will close completely as will Bescot Stadium.

Birmingham Snow Hill's office will not sell tickets after 9pm Monday to Thursday or 11pm Fridays.

Rowley Regis and Cradley Heath offices will shut at 7pm Monday to Thursday and 8pm Friday, while Langley Green will only open 7am to 9am in the week and until 2pm at weekends.

Lichfield's two ticket offices will be shut by 7pm but Shenstone will actually open 10 minutes earlier at 7am.

Transport authority Centro has written to Transport Minister Theresa Villiers urging her to look closely at proposals. Chairman Angus Adams said: "Their rationale for deciding changes fails to take into account the wider benefits of staff presence at stations, including the critically important role of reassuring passengers."

London-Midland has pledged to ensure its "high standards of customer service" are not compromised.