TRANSPORT for London (Tfl) has described a press release by the RMT as scaremongering.

The RMT and Tfl have been at loggerhead's over the proposed ticket office cuts in tube stations around the capital including North Harrow, Canons Park, West Harrow and Sudbury Hill.

The National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT) released a press release last Friday (August 3) saying that the cull' of ticket offices is far worse than previously thought.

RMT's general secretary Bob Crow said: "As Tube bosses deliberately create longer queues to drive people away from ticket offices, RMT has learned that LUL has a hit-list of 130 stations where further changes to ticket office hours are proposed.

"The union has also learned that TfL has a deliberate strategy to lengthen queues and frustrate people into going elsewhere, and that its ticket office closure plan is based on predictions of the lower future use that it will help to bring about.

"TfL has claimed that it is responding to reduced demand for ticket-office services, but it is clearly engineering that reduced demand."

In response to the latest vent by RMT a London Underground spokesperson said: "The RMT are scaremongering. There is absolutely nothing new here. We have been in talks with them about changes to ticket office hours for over two months.

"There is no truth whatsoever in the RMT claim that we are intentionally increasing queues. On the contrary, queues have fallen along with the 40 per cent fall in ticket office sales over the last two years as people have switched to Oyster. Passengers can now re-charge their Oyster online, over the phone or at ticket machines on stations. They can also now buy tickets from more places than ever before.

"The simple fact is that more and more customers are using oyster cards instead of cash because that is the cheapest way to travel. This success of Oyster has led to a huge reduction in the number of customers buying tickets at our stations. Some stations now sell less than 100 tickets a day and at one station it is just 16."

RMT's Bob Crow said: "Ticket offices provide an essential service way beyond simply selling tickets, for the public the cuts will mean less security and fewer staff to deal with emergencies and ticketing problems.

"For our members they mean more lone working, more ticket disputes, more assaults and more stress."