New petition to reopen Carno train station

The appeal to restore Carno station comes a decade after the first petition was handed to the Welsh Assembly.

Nearly 800 people signed the original petition in 2007 and it was among the first to be considered by the assembly's petitions committee.

The station shut in 1963 when Lord Beeching restructured the UK's railways but trains still pass through the village between Shrewsbury and Aberystwyth.

Jeremy Barnes, from Carno Station Action Group, said: "The first petition was discussed in depth and it was agreed plans to reopen the station should go forward but we have battled ever since so we've decided to go again."

The group will present the petition, which already has about 600 signatures, to the Welsh Assembly at 12.30pm on October 5 on the steps of the Senedd.

Trains still pass through the overgrown platform but the nearest station is about six miles away in Caersws. Campaigners say the village is on the longest stretch of railway without a station in Wales – with 22 miles between Caersws and Machynlleth.

Mr Barnes said the station would create job prospects for many residents.

"In 2007 when the first petition went in, the Laura Ashley factory in Carno closed and around 220 jobs were lost in a village of only 800 people – that is major but no one seems to care," he said.

"People would be able to commute if there was a station in the village. At the moment they have to drive and park in Caersws which already has major problems with car parking. The whole thing has a knock on effect."

He believes it would take £1.6 million to build a new platform and infrastructure to get the disused station up and running.

Earlier this year it was announced that nearly £7 million of funding had been secured for a new station to be built in Bow Street, Ceredigion.

The petition can be signed in pubs and shops in Carno, and the action group will be in the village over the coming weeks asking people to support the plans.