The new season ticket prices for Brighton & Hove travellers are now out – and the Greens have calculated that local commuters will be much worse off as a result.

The full season ticket from Brighton to Travelcard zones 1-6, including the cost of the Travelcard, is to be £4,928 (1), up from £4,644 – a rise of 6.1%.

Caroline Lucas, MP for Brighton Pavilion, said:

"This shocking 6.1% rail fare rise for Brighton and Hove commuters comes in the same week as the news that our city is the worst affected in the South East by government cuts to local councils.

"The people of Brighton are already being badly hurt by this government’s disastrous economic mismanagement, cuts to local authorities and soaring living costs.

"This is a scandalous rise designed to keep shareholders well served while everyone else suffers the squeeze of so-called austerity.

"David Cameron's claim last month that average rises for the next two years would be capped at RPI plus 1% (2) fails to reflect the fact big rises are still happening, since the ‘fares basket’ allows a train operator to bump up individual ticket prices as long as they keep prices across all of the different fares they offer below that average.

"Not only is this bad news for the environment and efforts to reduce pollution and carbon emissions from transport, it’s also wrong that hard-working taxpayers should have to foot the bill for rail profits and overseas shareholders.

"For both reasons, the Green Party is firmly committed to re-nationalising the railways – and polls show that at least three quarters of British people (3) now agree with us.”

ENDS

Notes

1) http://ojp.nationalrail.co.uk/service/seasonticket/tickets

2) October 2012 RPI stood at 3.2%

3) http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/oct/04/public-want-railways-renationalised