BRADFORD Interchange was the sixth busiest railway station in Yorkshire last year, official figures have revealed.

The statistics, from the Office of Rail and Road, showed the number of passengers at the station rose by 2.5 per cent from April 2019 to March 2020 compared with the previous 12 months.

A total of 2,675,278 entries and exits were made, compared with 2,609,372 in the previous year.

Across Yorkshire, Leeds was again the busiest station with 31 million passengers, a rise of 200,000 on 2018-19, followed by Sheffield and York, which both also saw an increased footfall.

Huddersfield was next with 4.77m visitors, a slight decrease on the previous year, followed by Doncaster which saw its vistior numbers rise slightly to 3.95m.

Bradford Forster Square was the next busiest station in the district, and ninth busiest in Yorkshire, with 1.95m passengers, a fall of 2.4 per cent compared with the previous year.

Shipley was next with 1.67m passengers, but journeys from this station also fell, by 2.3 per cent.

Journeys also fell in Keighley by 3.2 per cent to 1.57m, in Ilkley by 0.9 per cent to 1.33m, and in Bingley by 2.8 per cent to 1.17m.

Saltaire, Steeton & Silsden, Crossflatts, Burley-in-Wharfedale, Frizinghall and Baildon all also saw a fall in passenger numbers.

Menston, Apperley Bridge, Low Moor and Ben Rhydding were the only stations to join Bradford Interchange in seeing an increase in passengers last year.

Nationally, nine of the ten busiest stations were in London, with London Waterloo again the busiest station in Britain with 86.9m entries and exits, even despite a 7.3m fall in visitors compared with the previous year.

In total three billion visits were made to railway stations in 2019-20, a fall of 32m from 2018-19 which was the busiest year ever recorded on the UK's railways.