Campaigners rail against fare rises for hard-pressed commuters

As annual season tickets for the railways rise this weekend, a campaign group has said the government risks losing support for a publicly owned railway if the prices keep rising as they are.

A season ticket from from Macclesfield to Manchester, for example, will rise by £146 while an annual season ticket from York to Leeds will rise by £133.

Commenting ahead of Sunday’s (2 March) annual rail fare rise, Michael Solomon Williams from Campaign for Better Transport said:  “With food and energy costs going up, today’s rail fare rise will pile further misery on hard-pressed households. Cost is the number one barrier to getting more people travelling by rail, so the Government must address the rising cost of train travel as part of its forthcoming rail reforms. The majority of the public are in favour of a publicly owned railway, but this support all but vanishes if fares were to continue to increase. If the Government wants to do something genuinely popular, get Britain moving and help people with the cost of living, it should be making rail fares cheaper.”

Campaign for Better Transport analysis of season ticket costs reveals that out of 40 popular commuter routes into London, three will see season tickets newly go above £6,000 from Sunday (2 March), while annual season tickets from Canterbury and Southampton into London will cost £7,100 and £7,477 respectively.

In addition to the above inflation rail fare rise, the cost of some railcards, which since 2013 have been priced at £30 a year, will increase by £5.