THE chairman of an Oxfordshire council has hit back at the proposed £200 million upgrade to the Cotswold line railway.

Earlier this week, this paper revealed plans to improve the line would centre around Hanborough station and now, Richard Fairhurst, chairman of Charlbury Town Council, has questioned those plans.

He said: "Obviously I'm pleased to see Hanborough getting an improved service, however it shouldn't be at the expense of Charlbury, which is the busiest station on the line."

The most recent data (2018-19) from the Office of Rail and Road shows that Charlbury station had almost 286,000 entries and exits, whilst Hanborough station had just over 224,000 passengers a year.

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Mr Fairhurst added: "I don't think anyone is going to disagree that the improving of the line is very much welcome.

"However, the service that Charlbury gets from this investment isn't going to improve and we are fairly worried about that.

"We want to make sure if £200 million is being spent then it is being spent fairly.

"We'd like the task force behind this project to engage with us, and Kingham and Chipping Norton too.

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"Obviously this is a few years from happening but we want to make sure our voice is heard.

"One of the great strengths of Charlbury is that for a town of just 3,000 people, we have such a successful station."

Mr Fairhurst also raised concerns surrounding future developments in the Charlbury area, which may well mean the station needs further support.

He said: "We appreciate that the A40 can't cope with any more traffic but 1,200 homes are being built in Chipping Norton, on the Charlbury side of the town.

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"Quite a lot of these people won't be working in Chipping Norton, as they'll be working in Oxford and London.

"These people will want to be getting the train and the service will need to support them."

Currently, Charlbury station only has one train per hour during off peak and two per hour during peak times.

Mr Fairhurst is hopeful that the station can get two trains an hour on a full time basis.

Encouraging the public to travel by rail is key for Mr Fairhurst.

"We need to encourage more people to travel by rail especially seeing as though councils are declaring a climate emergency," he said.