PASSENGER numbers were down at Redditch railway station last year as more people stayed at home during the coronavirus pandemic, figures show.

Statistics from the Office of Rail and Road show an estimated 210,000 passengers used Redditch station in 2020-21.

This was 79% fewer than in 2019-20, when 1 million travelled on trains.

Across Great Britain, usage of railway stations fell from 3 billion in 2019-20 to 687 million – a fall of 77%.

The busiest station in England – with an estimated 14 million passengers – was Stratford, in London, marking the first time in 17 years that Waterloo was not the most-used.

The figures are based primarily on ticket sales.

Feras Alshaker from the ORR said: “We’ve seen a radical change, especially in London, in the stations people were using the most.

"However, we know that recent figures show leisure journeys are nearly back to pre-pandemic levels, while there has been a slower increase in commuter journeys.”