JOHN Knight of the Green Party wrote that Northern Rail had made a massive increase in rail fares by fiddling with off peak conditions and that they operate ‘most services in Cheshire’, Guardian, September 18.

They operate relatively few services in Cheshire, from Crewe it’s only the slow trains to Manchester.

And my copy of the paper included an advertising leaflet from Northern which shows the condition change hasn’t been applied to those trains.

So, as far as Crewe is concerned there haven’t been any fare increases. But a lot of people don’t understand the details and thanks to his letter they will now think that most fares from Crewe have gone up massively and will stick to using cars.

The letter has created an “own goal” in the campaign to get people to use public transport.

He’s not the first, and certainly won’t be the last, politician to make wild statements about railways without checking facts (or adjusting the letter according to which newspaper it has been sent to).

But public transport is supposed to be a core policy of the Greens and I sort of hoped that they might have been a bit more accurate than the other parties.

Steve Bratt, Crewe