Hopes for new Baschurch railway station

There are calls for a new station to reconnect a village to the rail network, 60 years after it was closed.

Land has been set aside as part of a new housing development set to be built near the former station building in Baschurch, Shropshire.

It is hoped a replacement station could be built if and when funds are secured.

The council said future rail connectivity requirements would be considered as part of the its new Local Transport Plan.

Since its closure in the 1960s, calls have been mounting for the station to reopen and earlier this year hundreds of people signing a petition asking Shropshire Council to fund a new feasibility study.

The former station, now known as Station House, is privately owned and in residential use, meaning a new station would need to be built in order to get the village reinstated as a stop on the Shrewsbury-Chester line.

In a public question to the council's cabinet on Wednesday, local campaigner Robert Jones, who started the petition in March, said reconnecting the village to the rail network would bring a number of benefits, the Local Democracy Reporting Service said.

Councillor Nick Bardsley, who represents Ruyton and Baschurch, said the ambitions for reopening the station had been taken into consideration in the plans for a new housing development on the Shropshire Stone and Granite Yard.

He added the layout of the development "allows for the reopening - or more likely the building of a new railway station at Baschurch".

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