Peterborough to London rail season tickets set to rise by more than £200

Commuters travelling from here to the capital regularly in standard class will have to fork out an eye-catching £6,748 to use Great Northern and Thameslink services only.

That is a £208 increase from the existing season ticket of £6,540.

The season ticket works out at average journey price of £14.54 according to National Rail.

A 12 month standard class season ticket for all trains between Peterborough and London is set to rise from £7,752 to £8,000, an increase of £248.

That works out at an average journey price of £17.24.

The East Coast Main Line is operated by London North Eastern Railway, which runs fast trains between Peterborough and London.

An LNER Anytime Short Return is currently £114 and will rise to £115.00 from January 2, a spokesperson said.

Train prices are set to rise across the board by an average of 3.1 per cent from tomorrow, but Labour East of England MEP Alex Mayer said: “Give commuters a break.

“Surely after the delays, cancellations and overcrowding on the railways last year the Government should not be allowing fares to increase faster than many people’s wages. We need to be encouraging people onto trains not putting obstacles in the way.

“It is time to learn from Europe. Startlingly it costs more for the 84 mile commute from Peterborough to London than it does to travel across the whole German rail network.”

The MEP said the price of a Peterborough to London season ticket has risen by 36 per cent since 2010.

Figures show on average Brits spend 55p per mile travelling by rail, compared to 27p in Ireland, 24p in Belgium at 24p and 19p in Germany.

In Germany it costs £3,955.92 for a BahnCard100 - an annual ticket that covers travel across their entire rail network, £2,792.08 less than a Peterborough to London season ticket.

A spokesperson for LNER said: “We know that the price of a ticket is an important factor when someone is planning to travel and that is why we work hard to make rail travel good value for money.

“Our most recent step to help make travelling with us more affordable is the introduction of our Family Return ticket which helps families save on average 54 per cent per journey.”

Commuters in Peterborough faced an “unacceptable” service due to a bungled new rail timetable in May for Govia Thameslink Railway (GTR) and Great Northern services from Peterborough into London.

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