Calls for a London rail price freeze mount to encourage those working from home to return to the office

London bosses today called for rail fares to be frozen to encourage wary staff to return to the office, as commuters brace to discover the scale of a price hike next week.

The annual rise in regulated rail fares is calculated on July’s Retail Price Index figure, due to be released next Wednesday. Economists are pencilling in a 1% rise in prices, meaning the price of some commuter season tickets could increase by £50 from January.

The calculation comes as bosses mull ways to encourage office workers and shoppers back to central London while Britain stutters out of lockdown. With the UK in recession, the cost of travel saved during lockdown has become a key focus for hard-pressed Londoners.

Ewan Venters, chief executive of 313–year-old department store retailer Fortnum & Mason, said: “Yes 100% to a rail freeze. I would go further and ask that TfL move to offering access to the underground free of charge for three months from September.”

Venters said the Treasury needed to show the invention displayed in creating the Eat Out to Help Out dining scheme. He added: “We need a big gesture to change people’s habits. I have been on the tube this week and it’s incredibly clean and safe. We simply need more people to enjoy everything London has to offer including a Knickerbocker Glory or a cup of tea at Fortnum’s!”

When asked if he was in favour of a fare freeze, advertising tycoon Sir Martin Sorrell said: “Most definitely, if it encourages people to use public transport and it’s as safe as possible. We can’t all bike in or walk to work.”

Sorrell has accused Government of confused messaging, and lamented the recent hike in the congestion charge. He said: “It’s stopping people using private transport, at a time they’re worried about the safety of public transport. Mixed messaging?”

The Campaign for Better Transport has been pushing for Government to hold fares and enable flexible season tickets as workers navigate returning to the office with a new zeal for working from home.

Brent Hoberman, founder of Lastminute.com and chairman of tech incubator Founders Factory, said of the fare freeze: “It’s definitely something that should be looked at. That would make the commute better but you’d have to see whether affordability or safety was the core issue.

“It’s critical we take whatever measures needed to make people comfortable in coming back to work. We are in a false sense of security that productivity and mental health will not be damaged by working from home.”

Hoberman called for Crossrail to be completed quickly to reduce the “density” of passengers on the rail network.

He said young people may miss out on opportunities working from home, and added: “The ability to create teams and good cultures comes from those corridor conversations, the creative serendipity. The people who say they want to work from home forever need to think about how they compete on a global scale if they don’t want their job outsourced.”