Over £1,100 to park the car at the train station: charges hiked by up to five per cent

 
Parking cost up: Haywards Heath car park Picture: Google Street view
Dick Murray7 January 2014

Train station car parking charges are increasing by up to an inflation busting five per cent.

Rail bosses were today accused of "daylight robbery" and "ripping off" passengers.

It will now cost £1,138 for an annual parking ticket at Haywards Heath (Southern) - heart of the traditional "stockbroker belt."

Parking charges are not regulated and the train companies use private contractors.

Southern, one of the largest commuter operators, is increasing its overall average parking charge by 5.1 per cent - annual tickets rise by 3.72 per cent.

The revelation comes in the wake of the £5,000 a year season ticket and flies in the face of government efforts to cap commuter fares to 3.1 per cent.

Manuel Cortes, leader of the TSSA union which revealed the increases and whose ticket office members have to deal with anger and frustration from passengers, said: "This is little more than daylight robbery by the private rail firms.

"Passengers may have escaped the bullet of inflation plus fare increases last week but now they have been hit by another bullet - car parking charges rising three times higher than the rate of inflation."

He called on car parking charges to be included in the regulated (peak) rail fares formula which is set by Ministers every January.

Other charges include Redhill (£1052,) Brighton, Dorking, Merstham, Oxted (all £956) and Horsham (£910.) An annual season at Hitchin, Herts, now costs £1115 - an increase of 2.76 per cent.

A Southern spokesman said: “Revenue from car parks continues to be reinvested in facilities and additional capacity. We have invested over £8m in improving our car parks, and have to date provided over 1,100 additional spaces.”

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