Shropshire Star

'The start of something big': Leader hails 'team effort' over village's train station dream

A community leader has hailed "a real team effort" that has helped keep a Shropshire village's railway station dream on track.

Published
The former station, known as Station House, is now in private hands

Baschurch could get a station for the first time since the 1960s after residents convinced a planning committee to ignore council officers' advice and give a housing development the green light.

The developer, Shingler Homes, has pledged to ring fence land for a railway station car park in its plans. Having a car park would be essential for the village to have any chance of getting a station in the future.

Last summer, hundreds of people attended a meeting to support the plans, at which North Shropshire MP Helen Morgan described it as a "now or never" chance to potentially bring a station to the area. There were 118 comments in favour of the 48-home development on the planning application.

Baschurch Railway Station was closed in the 1960s

Shropshire Council officers recommended that the proposal should be rejected due to falling outside the Local Plan development boundary. But the overwhelming support for the development convinced the authority's northern planning committee to disagree with officers and approve the plans.

Baschurch Parish Council chairman, Councillor Andy Woodthorpe, who pleaded with the committee to give villagers "what they want", praised residents and said they will be gathering next week to plan their next steps.

"I'd like to thank people, particularly residents who got behind it. It was a real team effort," he said.

"We always believed it was a perfectly sensible scheme. It's not just about the station. There's the affordable housing as well. We are delighted the committee have taken comments on board and listened."

He added: "We need to go and get a full feasibility study done. We'll be holding a meeting next week to decide what's next and move ahead with it. The parish council has allocated money to start the process and explore options.

"There is a lot of work to do, but hopefully this is the start of something really big."

At the planning meeting, Mr Woodthorpe told the committee that voting through the plans could be the "poster child" in demonstrating Shropshire Council's commitment to acting on the climate emergency. He also said if the development was not given the green light, including the car park commitment, the opportunity for a Baschurch railway station could be "lost forever".

The disused station has been closed for six decades but calls have been mounting for it to reopen, with hundreds of people signing a petition last year 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.

The development will be made up of one, two, three and four-bedroom homes, with 10 being “affordable” properties.