A COMMUTER has criticised a decision to increase car parking charges at a railway station.

Paul Durrant, who commutes from Northallerton to York, said he now had to pay more than double to leave his car at Northallerton station.

The increase in charges comes after TransPennine Express let out the management of its car parks to National Car Parks (NCP).

Following the change, the price of a day parking ticket has gone up from £1 to £2 and a monthly ticket has risen from £15.40 to £32.

Rail ticket prices have also risen by five per cent and Mr Durrant said that, on top of the increase in fares, it cost him an extra £25.40 each month to commute to York.

He said the increases penalised and inconvenienced rail passengers.

They also did not encourage people to use the railway instead of cars.

Mr Durrant said: "What kicks you when you are down is that in the first line on the poster placed by the car park ticket machines, informing customers of the new changes, it says that TransPennine Express and their new partner National Car Parks "has the pleasure to inform".

"Well, I cannot see how such a draconian price increase is pleasurable."

He said it was also more difficult to buy monthly, quarterly or yearly season tickets because they could no longer be obtained from the station ticket office and had to be ordered by phone or post.

TransPennine Express defended the increase in parking charges, saying that they still represented good value for money.

A spokesman for the company said: "NCP is looking after car parks on our behalf because they have more experience of this and can offer a better service, so we can concentrate on running a quality train service.

"Two pounds a day still isn't out of the way for car parking and, if you accept the principle that car parking should be paid for, if you get a quarterly ticket it is less than a pound a day to park, which is pretty nominal."

He said the extra money would help achieve Secure Station Car Park Status, focusing on making the car park safer to use.