WHY ARE ST ALBANS COMMUTERS PAYING OVER THE ODDS IN ANNUAL RAIL FARE INCREASES?

11.44.00am GMT Mon 5th Jan 2009

- Huge increases is St Albans rail fares compare with much cheaper travel for similar rail commutes elsewhere

- FCC has some serious questions to answer

St Albans rail commuters are having to pay increases in fares nearly one third higher than the average 6 percent increase in "regulated" fares announced in November 2008 for the FCC network. The increase in local peak fares has turned out to be a whopping eight percent at a time when overall price inflation is plunging towards zero. These shocking figures have been calculated by Sandy Walkington, Liberal Democrat parliamentary candidate for St Albans after he was contacted by furious local rail travellers.

Hard-pressed local commuters have seen the London all-zone annual season ticket increase in cost by £240, from £3040 to £3280 - an increase of 7.8 percent But the price of a ticket to a London Thameslink destination (so purely on FCC services without the tube and bus supplement) is increasing by over eight percent.

"Any above inflation fare increase is open to question," Sandy said. "But these increases are stratospheric. They are particularly objectionable given the upcoming disruption faced by St Albans commuters over the next 3 years as a result of the Thameslink works - no Moorgate or Barbican with resultant loss of interchange to the Tube, Blackfriars losing Tube access, Farringdon with restricted access."

"Apparently FCC claim that they simply have to "average" their regulated fare increases at 6% across their whole route network. Yet with St Albans being one of the most heavily used stations in the United Kingdom, it is interesting to wonder where they are imposing correspondingly reduced fare increases below six percent in order to hit the average figure required by the regulator. It is certainly not in neighbouring Welwyn Garden City on the Cambridge to Kings Cross branch of the FCC network where peak fares into London are also rising by eight percent.

"At a time when everyone is financially harder-pressed than they have been for a generation, when we are supposed to be encouraging green modes of travel, FCC has some serious questions to answer," Sandy said. "Where are they charging less than six percent. Why are other areas benefiting at St Albans expense? It is not as if St Albans rail travellers are being subsidised by the taxpayer. Local rail services are already hugely profitable with First Capital Connect paying the Government nearly one billion pounds in premium over the lifetime of its franchise. So these fare increases are simply another stealth tax on local residents, when on pure economics there is no reason for any fare increase at all."

"At least St Albans commuters will be pleased to know that the Prime Minister looks after his own. Burntisland in Fife in the Prime Minister's Kirkcaldy & Cowdenbeath constituency is exactly the same distance from Edinburgh as St Albans is from London St Pancras - yet St Albans commuters pay more than 40 percent more to travel to work. It is yet another way that local people are penalised by the government's skewed policies," Sandy concluded.