A BITTER dispute over rail staffing is set to engulf another swathe of Britain’s national network — with guards on Greater Anglia now being balloted for strike action.

The company, which runs trains between London Liverpool Street and East Anglia, has declined to guarantee the future of on-train guards.

With the introduction of new rolling stock, several key franchises have sought to move trains onto driver-only operation.

This has led to the prolongued industrial dispute on Southern — and more recently on the Northern and Merseyrail networks. Strike action on Great Western and ScotRail has led to bosses guaranteeing the role of guards in deals with rail union RMT.

Unions fear the move will lead to guards’ jobs being axed altogether — and have raised concerns over safety and disabled access.

RMT said that in a meeting with Greater Anglia, bosses had not offered reassurances “with respect to the role and responsibilities of the guards” for the length of their franchise.

“Greater Anglia have been given every opportunity to give a guarantee on the future role of the guard on its services. It has failed to do so,” the union’s general secretary Mick Cash said.

“RMT will not sit back and wait for the company any longer and we have no option but to begin preparations for a ballot in order to protect safety and access on Greater Anglia services.”

But Greater Anglia delivery director Richard Dean said: “We have conductors on our Intercity service between Norwich and London Liverpool Street and on our rural routes across East Anglia.

“They are highly valued colleagues and we have no plans to remove them from our trains. In fact, we have a new conductors training course starting in August.

“We hold regular meetings with the unions which represent our colleagues. These meetings will continue as we remain available for talks to resolve this issue.”

Last week, RMT said the FirstGroup/MTR consortium due to take over South West Trains next month had similarly failed to offer reassurances about future staffing.

In a letter to the union, bosses said they were “not committed to any one way of operation.”