Rail firms hike parking charges

HUNDREDS of railway station car parks have raised their prices in a fresh blow to hard-pressed commuters.

It comes only days after passengers were hit by a 3.2 per cent rise in rail fares, with many season tickets soaring by more than £100 a year.

Govia Thameslink Railway said parking charges at 139 stations on its Southern, Great Northern, Thameslink and Gatwick Express services will increase by 3.2 per cent from tomorrow.

At Haywards Heath, West Sussex, the cost of a daily parking ticket will rise 25p to £8.60. At Hitchin, Hertfordshire, it will increase 20p to £8.10 while at Bedford it rises 25p to £8.65.

Passengers on LNER trains also face higher peak time prices from tomorrow. At York station, a daily parking ticket is rising from £16.50 to £17 while an annual season ticket goes up by £60 to £1,970.

The RAC’s Rod Dennis said: “Still reeling from yet another round of rail fare rises, commuters now have yet another reason to be livid when they discover they will be paying more simply to park their cars.

“The promise of new ticket machines and smoother station car parks is unlikely to ease drivers’ pain, many of whom will doubtless wonder where on earth the money they already pay to park already goes.”

TSSA rail union boss Manuel Cortes said: “Fleecing passengers in parking charges is just another sneaky way to milk millions more a year from passengers’ wallets into shareholder dividends.”

Greater Anglia, which runs trains through Essex, Cambridgeshire, Suffolk and Norfolk, says some of its station car parks will also cost more from later this month.

Martyn James, of customer complaint site Resolver, said: “For millions of people, every penny will count in 2019. So with commuters already having to deal with an inflationbusting increase in fares, hitting them with even higher charges for parking at the station may be one expense too many. This may make the difference to whether people can afford to travel to work.”

Govia Thameslink said: “This is only the second increase in three and a half years and helps fund our multi-million pound investment in ticket machines and payment systems, resurfacing and car park extensions, all designed to give customers a better service.”

An LNER spokesman said: “We want our car parking facilities to be well used, so any changes introduced come at the end of a thorough process which looked at affordability, occupancy rates and alternative parking nearby.”

‘Fleecing passengers is another sneaky way to milk millions more’