MORE than eight million passengers left and arrived at York station in 2013 to 2014. Yet York, one of the fastest growing cities in the UK, has only one local station, at Poppleton.

York’s trains offer much connectivity for commuters, tourists, business and leisure travellers. Every 24 hours, Mondays to Fridays there are to and from York between Leeds, Newcastle, Manchester and London services, as well as Edinburgh, Birmingham, Sheffield and Manchester airport.

Yet tens of thousands of York residents living in Strensall, Haxby, Wigginton, New Earswick, Huntington and neighbouring villages wanting to use the train are faced by time-consuming journeys and costly parking. It can take as long from Wigginton to the station as it does to travel to Leeds on the train.

A North York Parkway station adjoining the ring road/York road junction in south Haxby would reduce car journeys to and from York station and mean more train travel.

In addition to the Malton and Scarborough trains, a shuttle service would run to and from an existing unused platform at York. This would also encourage the provision of halts next to York Hospital and in Haxby and Strensall, making much better use of the Scarborough line, whose nearest station to York is Malton.

This new station would hasten two other vital investments – the crucial expansion of the ring road and the long delayed refurbishment of York’s station built over 140 years ago. The only major city station on the East Coast main line yet to be improved, years after King’s Cross, Leeds, Newcastle and Edinburgh.

Peter Vaughan, Manor Garth, Wigginton, York