TRAIN companies and the Government have come under fire after fares for services out of York were hiked by up to 5.5 per cent.

Passengers are today paying an extra £3.10 for a GNER saver return fare from York to London, after the cost rose to £75.10.

The fare for someone travelling from York to Harrogate on a Northern Rail standard day return has risen from £7.05 to £7.40.

The fare increases, introduced yesterday, and revealed in The Press in November, come in at two different rates.

Regulated ticket prices for train companies including GNER, Virgin Cross Country, Northern Rail and First TransPennine Express rose by 4.3 per cent - one per cent higher than inflation.

Fares for Hull Trains, which operates services from Selby to London, rose by an average of 3.5 per cent, while GNER increased its unregulated fares by an average of 5.5 per cent.

However, the company stressed that its heavily discounted, pre-booked fare for York-London return has been frozen at £19, with an extra discount currently available for people booking online taking the cost down to just £16.

Selby's Labour MP John Grogan said today that fares in Britain were now very high in comparison with other European countries, and he believed that increasing competition between train companies might be the most effective way of bringing down prices.

"That is why I supported Grand Central's bid to run trains on the East Coast Main Line," he said.

"Competition from Hull Trains has also benefited people traveling to London, with people from my constituency who live halfway between York and Selby coming to Selby to get a train to London to get a Hull Trains service to the capital."

Phil Willis, the Liberal Democrat MP for Harrogate & Knaresborough, said passengers wanted a railway service of convenience, quality and price, and the regional railways were offering none of these things.

He claimed the Government was treating the railways, particularly the East Coast Main Line, as a cash cow to be milked for the benefit of the Treasury, when it should be encouraging people into the trains from their cars because of global warming.

Vale of York's Tory MP Anne McIntosh said: "People will find these increases crippling - they do seem excessive." The Tory MP for Ryedale, John Greenway, said some of the extra cash being paid for GNER trains on the East Coast Main Line was going straight to the Treasury through payments for the franchise.

A Department for Transport spokesman said setting fares was a commercial decision for operators, and claimed ministers wanted the railways to grow and passenger numbers to increase.