CAMPAIGNERS hope that their plans for a new station will receive high-level support — just as an important piece of track nears completion a few hundred yards away.

Supporters of the Cornholme Railway Station Action Group (CRAG) are looking to draw up a feasibility study to reintroduce a train service for the village for the first time since 1938.

Not only would the service regenerate Cornholme but provide a more convenient inter-city link for villagers in nearby Cliviger and Worsthorne, they claim.

The next bank holiday weekend should see work completed on the 500-yard Todmorden Curve, which should eventually create extra services to Manchester. And CRAG members are hopeful that their Cornholme Station bid will be favourably received when it is debated by West Yorkshire Metro this week.

Todmorden Town Council is also considering investing £90,000, over three years, to fund initial research work into the planned £5million station.

Coun David Tattersall, Labour group leader on the town council and a Cornholme representative, said: “This would substantially regenerate the area and give us improved links to Manchester, Leeds and Bradford, and Lancashire.

“We are now in a position, with the Todmorden Curve reopening to gain access to all the major conurbations and reach five million people.”

The town council has set up a working group which includes the mayor, Cornholme councillors, the authority’s development committee chairman and Coun Steve Sweeney, Calderdale Council’s economic regeneration member, alongside CRAG officials. The station at Cornholme was first opened, as part of the Lancashire to Yorkshire line, in 1859. A neighbouring station at Portsmouth lasted slightly longer, closing in 1959.

Meanwhile work on the new £2.3million Manchester Road Station at Burnley is almost complete.