Okehampton Town Council has warned of a ‘difficult week’ ahead as railway strikes next week are set to cause severe disruption to travellers.

The council has advised customers not to travel by train unless necessary as all services to Okehampton station will be cancelled on June 21, 23 and 25 and run at a reduced rate on June 22, 24 and 26.

On social media the council said: ‘We are recommending that even where services are possible customers should only travel if absolutely necessary, services will be busy, and there will not be any replacement road transport. It is also important to note that there could be further changes, even on the day.

‘We understand the impact that these changes will have on customer journeys, and we know it will mean making alternative plans for many. We will therefore be doing all we can to alert customers to the changes, to give customers time to plan and any help you can give us with that would be very helpful.

‘This is going to be a very difficult week for our customers, we will do all we can to help, but the impact will be significant.’

Network Rail are currently working on adapting train timetables and online journey planners. Customers will be able to view changes to weekday journeys from Friday (June 17) and weekend journeys from Saturday (June 18).

Great Western Railway (GWR) has said that customers who have already purchased tickets will be entitled to a full refund or to amend their ticket while those who experience delays of 15 minutes or more may be able to claim compensation. Anyone with a ticket for a strike day journey will be able to use it on a journey either the day before strike action or up to two days afterwards.

The rail union, RMT, has planned a three-day national strike over pay and redundancies saying that rail employees have been subject to a multi-year pay freeze and the that planned redundancies by Network Rail will lead to safety problems.

There is also a planned strike on the London Underground on June 21.

For more information, visit www.gwr.com/strike.