Some bus passengers across County Durham and the wider North East will have to pay on average 20p more per journey after a transport operator announced a cost increase later this month.

Go North East, which operates services throughout the region to a range of destinations, revealed on Wednesday (July 6) that it would be making ‘significant’ changes to its bus tickets from July 24.

This includes adding 20p to some of its tickets, including singles and day tickets.

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According to Go North East, most adult singles and returns will increase by 20p, while there will be a new maximum single fare of £3.80, which is considerably lower than the previous maximum single fare of £5.30 which was reduced in the summer of last year.

Single journeys after 7pm will remain at a maximum of £2.

A spokesperson for the bus operator said: “Over the last couple of years, we’ve made various improvements to our range of fares and tickets based on your feedback, continuing to offer the best value for money that’s possible.

“In that time, we’ve introduced flexible tickets, promotional summer offers that became permanent, discounted evening tickets, and our recently launched DUO tickets to name but a few.”

The Northern Echo: A Go North East bus. Picture: NORTHERN ECHOA Go North East bus. Picture: NORTHERN ECHO (Image: GO NORTH EAST)

Despite the price hike, Go North East has maintained that the cost rises will only impact passengers buying tickets on the day, not people who choose to purchase tickets on the app.

The spokesperson added: “Unfortunately, we are now at the point where we have carefully reviewed the cost of running our services, and we are reluctantly changing the prices of some fares and tickets from July 24 due to rising costs.

“This is not a decision we have taken lightly, and we have kept price rises as low as we possibly can. Some tickets, such as our singles and returns, will remain cheaper than they were prior to July 2021, and some monthly tickets will have their prices frozen on our app.”

Full details of the Go North East tickets can be found here.

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