Bedford station saw more than 2 million visits last year

Bedford station saw more than 2 million visits last year, new figures show.

Office for Rail and Road data looks at the number of people entering and exiting every train station across Great Britain.

Its figures show Bedford station had 3 million entries and exits in the year to March. The next busiest station was Bedford St Johns, with 142,000 visits.

In third was Kempston Hardwick with 4,458.

Elsewhere in Britain Liverpool Street in London overtook Waterloo as the most-used station in Great Britain, which the ORR attributed to the opening of London's latest train service, the Elizabeth Line.

Waterloo had been the busiest station in the country in all but one of the previous 18 years, but it even dropped to third in the year to March behind Paddington.

The busiest stations outside London were Birmingham New Street, Leeds and Manchester Piccadilly.

Glasgow Central was the most used station in Scotland, and Cardiff Central topped the list in Wales.

The least used station that was open throughout the whole year was Denton in Greater Manchester, with 34 entries and exits.

In total, there were 2.5 billion entries and exits across Great Britain in 2022-23, a significant increase from 1.8 billion the year before.

Michael Solomon Wiliams, campaigns manager, Campaign for Better Transport, said: "It’s encouraging to see that station usage is on the rise, but to continue this upward trend and surpass pre-pandemic numbers, rail needs to be better value and more reliable.

"Instead of implementing another record-high increase, the Government should freeze rail fares as it has fuel duty and make green public transport cheaper."