WE have taken a look at the latest government figures to reveal the busiest railway stations across the borough last year.

Office for Rail and Road data looks at the number of people entering and exiting every train station in the country, including the 10 stations for which data was collected in St Helens.

Its figures show 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.

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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, also on the Elizabeth Line.

But what about in St Helens? Here were the most used stations in the year to March.

The Top Five Stations

1. Newton-le-Willows: With 799,000 entries and exits into the station in 2022-23, Newton-le-Willows station topped the charts as the busiest train station in St Helens.

2. St Helens Central: This was followed by St Helens Central station, which saw people enter and exit 537,000 times last year.

3. Lea Green: In third was Lea Green – 340,000 entries and exits were recorded there.

4. Earlestown: Just behind on 275,000 entries and exits was Earlestown.

5. St Helens Junction: And rounding out the top five was St Helens Junction, with 163,000 entries and exits.

Elsewhere in Britain

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.

Teesside Airport station in Darlington recorded two entries and exits, but its once-a-week Sunday service was suspended in May 2022 after the platform was judged to be unsafe.

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, but still below the 3 billion entries and exits in 2019-20, before the coronavirus pandemic.

What they said 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".