THE busiest railway station in the Maldon district has been revealed...but numbers were down 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 74,300 passengers used the district's four stations in 2020-21.

This was a whopping 85 per cent fewer than in 2019-20 when 483,000 travelled on trains in the area.

The busiest station was Burnham-On-Crouch which saw 39,900 entries and exits by passengers.

But this was down from 233,000 the year before - the lowest number of passengers since comparable records began in 1997.

This was followed by Southminster with 18,500, and North Fambridge which saw 9,100 passengers use the station.

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

The figures are based primarily on ticket sales.

In Maldon the quietest station was Althorne which welcomed 6,740 passengers last year - compared to 39,700 in 2019-20.

Andy Bagnall, director-general at industry body the Rail Delivery Group, said: “The station usage figures show how the rail industry kept people moving for the first year of the pandemic.

“Some of the entries on the list reflect where people like key workers were travelling from and also the acceleration of changes to how people are travelling after the pandemic.

“Rail companies are working together to welcome people back and the recent increase in passengers continues to both reflect and support the nation’s recovery.”

Separate figures from a YouGov poll of 56,000 adults show 53 per cent of people in the East of England think their local train services are very good or fairly good.