MP Ian Liddell-Grainger has praised campaigners fighting the closure of the ticket office at Taunton station.

He called for the greatest possible public support for a demonstration which is being planned for Saturday (July 21) in an attempt to head off train operator Great Western Railway’s (GWR) plans.

Taunton is one of 79 stations where ticketing facilities will be reduced to machine-only next year as GWR joins with other operators in phasing out staffed offices, a move likely to cost more than 2,000 jobs.

But Mr Liddell-Grainger, who represents West Somerset and will be the Conservative candidate for the new Tiverton and Minehead constituency taking in much of the area around Wellington, said the change would inconvenience tens of thousands of rail users and was more about boosting profits than offering an improved service.

He felt customer service at Taunton station had already fallen to an all-time low.

Mr Liddell-Grainger said: “The ticket office on the north side has been closed and replaced by one unreliable machine while the company has now reneged on an agreement to allow passengers to use that entrance to access the remaining ticket office on the other side.

“The changes to the station have resulted in chaos.

“Drivers waiting to meet trains are still clogging the station forecourt because if they use the multi-storey car park and go over their allotted free time because the train is delayed - by no means an unusual occurrence with GWR - they get penalised.

“Closing the ticket office is just another two-fingered gesture to the travelling public.

“Thousands of elderly passengers do not have access to a computer and therefore cannot book online and to leave them at the mercy of unreliable machines is an appalling failure of customer care.

“The complaints from my constituents about problems at the station continue to pile up and I applaud the protest group for deciding to bring this issue to the notice of the travelling public.”