The famous archer above East Finchley station

Barnet Greens are telling London Mayor Boris Johnson: “Hands off Tube ticket offices”.

Three years ago campaigning by  the Green Party helped force Ken Livingstone to scrap plans to shut round 40 London Underground ticket offices, including several in Barnet borough.

Now Barnet Greens are ready to wield their placards again to see off reported plans by Transport for London to axe 800 Tube station staff, affecting around 12 ticket offices in Barnet borough among dozens across London.

“This  could be the broken pledge too far that causes so many people to end their support for Boris Johnson that he will fail to win re-election if he stands again as Mayor of London in two years’ time,” said Andrew Newby, Green Party candidate for Hendon.

In 2007 Tube travellers were so keen to voice their objections to Livingstone’s plan that they literally grabbed draft protest letters from the hands of Barnet Green Party campaigners who offered them to people emerging from the local stations.

“Some people told us awful stories of problems they had had when no staff member was around to help them – elderly people who had had to climb over barriers, mothers with children in pushchairs who had had to lift the chairs over stubbornly closed barriers before climbing over themselves, and so on,” Newby said.

Wily Ken backed off from his idea and so will Boris if he has any sense. Despite the impression given by the vociferous road lobby that most people rely on cars, in fact around 80 percent of people who work in central London commute by public transport every day and they deserve improved tube, train and bus services, not reduced.

As many people have already pointed out, the objections to reduced ticket office opening hours are as strong now as they were then – greater risk to everyone, delays to journeys, loss of revenue. Worst of all, the heightened feeling of insecurity when no staff are around might put some people off travelling by Underground altogether.