The Guardian - The government's U-turn on closing more than 1,000 ticket offices is a relief. It is time to reject a short-sighted approach of managed decline Belatedly it has dawned on the government that closing more than 1,000 of England's railway station ticket offices, in an election year, would not be very smart politics. As a sound of screeching brakes emanated from Whitehall last week, the transport secretary, Mark Harper, announced that train operators had been asked to withdraw the cost-cutting strategy, which the government itself had originally pushed on them.
