Closure by stealth is a term most frequently used in the
UK and
Ireland
Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...
to refer to the deliberate downgrading of a service by the management or owners with the intention of driving away users or customers. The aim is to make the service uneconomical, and thereby justify its closure or withdrawal. It is most widely used in the case of government-
regulated
Regulation is the management of complex systems according to a set of rules and trends. In systems theory, these types of rules exist in various fields of biology and society, but the term has slightly different meanings according to context. Fo ...
services, where a company needs permission from
local government
Local government is a generic term for the lowest tiers of public administration within a particular sovereign state. This particular usage of the word government refers specifically to a level of administration that is both geographically-l ...
or
central government
A central government is the government that is a controlling power over a unitary state. Another distinct but sovereign political entity is a federal government, which may have distinct powers at various levels of government, authorized or dele ...
to withdraw a service.
Railways
The classic examples of closure by stealth involve UK
railway
Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a pre ...
services. These are often regulated at some level by local or national government, and the only way the owner can withdraw such a service is by demonstrating that the local population no longer needs that service. Some of the UK rail closures made under the
Beeching Axe while
British Rail were operating services were justified at the time by deliberately not including future efficiencies and bringing forward many years of future costs into a short time frame to show, by accounting, that the route was not sustainable. By degrading the quality of the service – for example by scheduling trains to run at inconvenient times or frequencies (known as
parliamentary train
A parliamentary train was a passenger service operated in the United Kingdom to comply with the Railway Regulation Act 1844 that required train companies to provide inexpensive and basic rail transport for less affluent passengers. The act req ...
services), in one direction only (trains serving a certain station on their outward but not on their return journey, see e.g. the case of
Polesworth railway station
Polesworth railway station serves the village of Polesworth in Warwickshire, England. It is situated on the Trent Valley section of the West Coast Main Line.
Since 2005, only the northbound platform has been accessible to passengers due to the ...
) or by raising fares – transport operators can force passengers to take other modes of transport, justifying the view of the service owner that the service is no longer required (a kind of
self-fulfilling prophecy).
Other services
Apparent closures by stealth have been observed in other services, such as post offices,
hospitals
A hospital is a health care institution providing patient treatment with specialized health science and auxiliary healthcare staff and medical equipment. The best-known type of hospital is the general hospital, which typically has an emerge ...
,
public libraries and
magistrates' courts
A magistrates' court is a lower court where, in several jurisdictions, all criminal proceedings start. Also some civil matters may be dealt with here, such as family proceedings.
Courts
* Magistrates' court (England and Wales)
* Magistrate's Cour ...
.
References
Business process
Rail transport operations
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