Greater Anglia has denied it has frozen Braintree season tickets due to the number of complaints it received.

The franchise has chosen to freeze annual tickets from Braintree to London Liverpool Street at £4,124 for 2014.

This compares to a one per cent rise for Witham season tickets, which took the cost over £4,000 to £4,060 for the first time.

Nationwide figures show there was an average 2.8 per cent rise for rail tickets.

It had been suggested Braintree ticket prices had been frozen due to the number of complaints, and Greater Anglia was forced to say it will look into contingency plans after the line was badly disrupted in the aftermath of the St Jude storm.

Data collected by the Witham and Braintree Rail Users’ Association shows 12.9 per cent of trains to Braintree, Witham and Chelmsford have been late- excluding the disruption during severe weather.

A Greater Anglia spokesman said: “A number of Greater Anglia fares in a number of places have been frozen at 2013 levels.

“This is a straightforward commercial decision to encourage more people to travel by train.”

The franchise has received about 40 complaints in the past year regarding the Braintree branch line.