Budget: Unhappy New Year for rail passengers
Today’s budget is expected to confirm an Unhappy New Year for rail passengers, already smarting from months of disrupted services, with a fares rise of 3.2% yet a continuation of the fuel duty freeze for motorists. In addition, there’s a massive allocation for continued roadbuilding.
Rail campaigners sense discrimination:
“Car drivers get massive investment and no duty rises for the eighth year in a row, while long-suffering rail passengers get spiralling fares and plummeting service. This is a blatant continuation of the victimisation of rail passengers – no duty escalator on the roads but a fares escalator on the rails” said Bruce Williamson from the independent campaign group Railfuture. “In 2011 a litre of petrol cost around 135 pence, about the same as now. By contrast rail fares have gone up around 25%. This is pricing people off the rails and onto our congested and polluting roads. Hard-pressed working families need a fares freeze just as much as a fuel duty freeze.”
Notes to editors:
Railfuture is the UK's leading independent organisation campaigning for better rail services for both passengers and freight.
Railfuture's website can be found at: www.railfuture.org.uk
Follow Railfuture on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Railfuture
For further information and comment please contact:
Bruce Williamson, media spokesman
Tel: 0117 927 2954 Mobile: 07759 557389
media at railfuture.org.uk