Time is running out for residents to have their say in a consultation over train station ticket office closures.

The extended deadline is set to expire on Friday, September 1, after which time a decision on closing Taunton's ticket office, as well as a number of others across the country, will be taken.

The proposals have drawn ire among many residents, with over 500 signing a petition opposing the plans.

Some politicians have also voiced their opposition to the move, raising the difficulties some vulnerable train passengers could face when buying tickets.

Gideon Amos, the Liberal Democrat candidate for Taunton and Wellington warned that if Taunton ticket office closes, it would hit elderly people the hardest. He said: "Closure would hit older and less able travellers harder than anyone else – why should they have to roam the station to find staff when we have a newly restored and handsome ticket hall which works so well.

“There’s only one reason rail operators across the whole country are proposing this at the same time – it’s being driven by the Conservative ministers running the Department for Transport who just want to downgrade our public services even further than they have over the past 13 years”.

The proposals have also been slammed by West Somerset MP Ian Liddell-Grainger, who said they would inconvenience tens of thousands of passengers.

Mr Liddell-Grainger said: 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.”

The petition to save Taunton's ticket office can be signed online.