THE number of passengers using Taunton railway station has not yet returned to pre-Covid level, but it is the busiest in the county, the latest figures show.

The data comes from the ONS/Office of Rail and Road, which also shows trends from previous years (April 2019 to March 2022).

Between Apr 2019 to Mar 2020, a total of 1,585,206 passengers (entries and exits) were recorded at the station.

Figures went down, and were obviously much lower due to Covid, between April 2020 to March 2021.

During that period, the total number of passengers travelling through Taunton was recorded at 364,244.

The latest figures available, the ones for the period going from April 2021 to March 2022, show the number of passengers using the station has increased, but not yet returned to pre-pandemic levels, and was recorded at 1,196,802.

Taunton station is the 325th most used across the country and the busiest in Somerset.

On a national level, London’s Liverpool Street station has replaced Waterloo as the busiest in Britain.

The number of entries and exits at Liverpool Street was 80.4 million in the year to the end of March, regulator the Office of Rail and Road (ORR) said.

The year-on-year increase of around 50 million was attributed to the opening of the Elizabeth line railway, which serves the station.