ALMOST 300,000 people visited one Carmarthenshire train station over the last year.

The Office for Rail and Road data provides data for the number of people entering and exiting each train station across the UK for 2022-23, including the 17 stations in Carmarthenshire that had data collected.

The data is for the year to March 2023 and saw Carmarthen as the train station with the most footfall in Carmarthenshire.

During the period, there were 293,000 entries and exits into the station in Carmarthen, making it the busiest in Carmarthenshire.

Llanelli came in second with 274,000 entries and exists. There was a significant drop in numbers to third place, with Pembrey Burry Port seeing 92,070 entries and exits.

In fourth place was Whitland with 35,350 entries and exits and rounding out the top five was Kidwelly with 20,972 entries and exits.

Across Great Britain, there were 2.5billion entries and exits in 2022-23, significantly higher than the 1.8billion the year before but below the 3billion in 2019-20 before the covid pandemic hit.

Michael Solomon Wiliams, campaigns manager of the 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.”

Across the UK, Liverpool Street in London was the most used station in Great Britain, overtaking Waterloo. This is just the second time in 18 years that Waterloo has been knocked off the top spot, but it was relegated down to third behind Liverpool Street and London Paddington – both of which are on the newly opened Elizabeth Line.

Outside London, the busiest stations were Birmingham New Street, Leeds and Manchester Piccadilly, with Cardiff Central being the most used in Wales and Glasgow Central in Scotland.

Denton in Greater Manchester was the least used station that was open throughout the whole year with just 34 entries and exits, however Darlington’s Teesside Airport station only recorded two entries and exits, but this once-a-week Sunday service was suspended in May 2022 after the platform was deemed to be unsafe.