YORK headquartered rail company Virgin Trains East Coast has been granted permission for additional rail services in and out of the city.

The Office of Rail & Road (ORR) announced yesterday that applications from Virgin Trains East Coast and FirstGroup for new services on the East Coast Main Line have been approved.

The move is set up open up competition between the two companies on the route as FirstGroup's approval allows it to operate five trains a day each way between London and Edinburgh by 2021 for 10 years

FirstGroup claims it will offer fares of £25 between the two captial cities, however while the routes will pass through York they won't stop, with the services calling instead at Stevenage, Newcastle and Morpeth.

Virgin Trains East Coast's new rights sees approval for new services to Bradford, Lincoln and Harrogate from May 2019 and Edinburgh and Middlesbrough from May 2021. Should capacity become available sooner, the service extensions to Edinburgh could start from May 2019.

The services will be introduced in stages over the coming years, in some cases once Network Rail completes a programme of work to increase track capacity.

In 2014 and 2015 ORR received applications from three train operators seeking to introduce new train services on the East Coast Main Line. A bid from Great North Eastern Railway Company (GNER) failed to secure approval.

John Larkinson, the ORR’s director of Railway Markets and Economics said: "These new train services will give passengers more choice on services to Edinburgh and London and provide more frequent trains to towns and cities which are not so well served by rail today."