Jason Arunn Murugesu

BBC News, North East and Cumbria

Fares on the Tyne and Wear Metro and the Shields Ferry will rise next Tuesday.

The price increases had initially been due in April but were postponed earlier in the year by North East Mayor Kim McGuinness following the travel disruption caused by the closure of the Gateshead Flyover.

From 1 July, the cost of a single journey on the Metro using a Pop card will go up from £1.80 to £2.00 for one zone, £2.70 to £2.90 for two zones and £3.40 to £3.60 for three.

Operator Nexus said the fares needed to rise to help address the "challenges of higher operational costs".

But Nexus official Helen Matthews said fares for people aged 21 or under would remain frozen at £1.

"We are freezing fares for young people, which meets region-wide ambitions to make public transport more affordable for them and support the mayor's plans to tackle child poverty," she said.

Paper ticket fares for the Metro are also set to rise as Nexus encouraged more people to use its pay-as-you-go (PAYG) smart card system instead.

From next week, the cost of a single journey paper ticket will go up from £2.80 to £3.00 for one zone, £3.80 to £4.00 for two zones and £4.50 to £4.70 for three zones.

"If customers switch to PAYG this year, they will be paying the same prices as paper ticket holders were paying in 2020," said Ms Matthews.

On average all fares are going up by about 4.6%, she said, even though Nexus' operational costs had increased by more than 5% over the last year.

"Metro is a public service and doesn't make a profit, so we require financial support from both central and local government, alongside the revenue that we generate from fares, to operate the system," she said.

A single journey on the Shields Ferry using a Pop card will rise from £1.50 to £1.60 next Tuesday.