THE Green candidate in the Crewe and Nantwich byelection and transport planner, Robert Smith, has attacked the privatised rail companies for excessive price rises since privatisation.

He said: "On Virgin services, prices have gone up by 135% since privatisation.

"This is unfair on ordinary people who want to travel by rail. It forces people onto already congested roads, when we should be doing everything we can to get people back onto our public transport system."

The Greens have criticised the main parties for running a "phoney" campaign, claiming there are very few differences left between the red, yellow and blue parties any more.

Peter Cranie, regional spokesperson for the Greens in the North West added: "People are being given a false choice. On issues like public transport only the Greens are offering a different vision of how we should run the transport network.

"Privatisation has failed, and big rises in fares mean that ordinary people are paying out for shareholder profits, instead of seeing that money reinvested back into better services."

"People deserve better value public transport, not an identical choice of continued privatisation from the three main parties."