Passengers using Kent’s trains from today will notice a hike in ticket prices - with one transport group saying it is “piling further misery on hard-pressed households”.

It was announced back in October that prices would rise as of Sunday, with regulated train fares increasing by 4.6% and most railcards increasing by £5.

Regulated rail fares include season tickets and many off-peak tickets.

It means the cost of a season ticket from Canterbury to London will now topple £7,000 for the first time, at £7,100.

Most rail cards - which normally offer savings of up to a third on travel - have increased from £30 to £35.

Michael Solomon Williams, from the Campaign for Better Transport, said: “With food and energy costs going up, today’s rail fare rise will pile further misery on hard-pressed households.

“Cost is the number one barrier to getting more people travelling by rail, so the government must address the rising cost of train travel as part of its forthcoming rail reforms.

“The majority of the public are in favour of a publicly-owned railway, but this support all but vanishes if fares were to continue to increase. If the government wants to do something genuinely popular, get Britain moving and help people with the cost of living, it should be making rail fares cheaper.”

Southeastern, the primary network serving Kent, is now operated by the government after its franchise was withdrawn from GoVia - a joint venture between the Go-Ahead Group and France-headquartered Keolis - in October 2021.

The National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT) says a national fare freeze could be funded through further rail reform.

Research is has published claims that even after the government’s “welcome plans” to bring train operations into public ownership, at least £630 million a year is still being “drained from the railway through outsourced track, train, and station contracts, as well as rolling stock leasing firms”.

RMT general secretary Mick Lynch said: "We have strongly supported he government’s proposals for a publicly owned Great British Railways, and we now want to work with ministers to build on this good start, developing a plan that could fund a fare freeze for passengers.

"Bringing outsourced rail contracts—including cleaning, catering, and track renewals—back in-house as they expire, and taking action on the profiteering of rolling stock leasing companies, could save £630 million a year, enough to fully fund a fare freeze.

"Reversing three decades of failed rail privatisation will not happen overnight, but if we want our railways to drive economic growth and cut carbon emissions, we must begin phasing out the costly and inefficient outsourcing of jobs for private profit."