A PUSH to encourage Okehampton shop owners to open for more hours in the week and seize the opportunities that come from the reopened railway service is expected to happen in the New Year.
Okehampton now has a golden opportunity to use the opening of the railway service to Exeter as a catalyst to improve the economy of the moorland location, town leaders said.
The call to businesses and shop owners follows the announcement from GWR that 10,000 passengers used the two hourly service in the first two weeks of operation.
Next summer the service between Okehampton and Exeter, the first to be reinstated under the Government’s Restoring Your Railway scheme, will be hourly.
Technical and business advisor for OkeRail, the campaign group who were instrumental in getting the trains back, Bruce Thompson, said the service was already proving popular with people wanting to travel to Exeter and Okehampton and the trains had real potential to increase the prosperity of the town.
’It is time for…
