A £15 million project to reopen a Stoke-on-Trent railway station remains 'in limbo' – despite hundreds of people calling for it to continue.

Meir Station, which closed in 1966 under the infamous Beeching cuts, was among the schemes set to be included in the Restoring Your Railway (RYR) programme.

But last year the Labour government cancelled RYR, saying that there was never sufficient funding for projects such as Meir Station.

Individual schemes are being reviewed, but no final decisions will be taken until after next month's Spending Review.

A total of 579 people signed a petition calling for Stoke-on-Trent City Council to lobby the government to re-establish Meir Station.

Lead petitioner Faisal Hussain, Conservative councillor for Meir South, believes the scheme is feasible and would help fix the area's transport problems.

He told the housing, regeneration and operations scrutiny committee that previous funding allocations of £50,000 in 2020 and £1.7 million in 2022 had resulted in Network Rail drawing up a full business case.

Cllr Hussain said: "It wouldn't have got to pre-application stage if no funding had been allocated to it, so clearly money was in place as Network Rail wound't waste their time if money and government support wasn't coming.

"This was a government choice. When the Chancellor made her speech on the cancellation of Restoring Your Railway, she did say she would look at each individual scheme and make a decision based on progression. She left us all in limbo as to what that meant.

"The feasibility study clearly stated that there is a need and a demand for this."

Cllr Hussain told the committee that Meir had lower car ownership and worse connectivity than Stoke-on-Trent as a whole, issues which reopening the station would help address.

He added: "It is not down to the council to defend the government's decision. It is there to stand up for the residents. The ask is simple – to back the residents of Meir and surrounding areas by writing to the government asking them rethink their decision and restore funding for Meir Station."

Labour councillor and cabinet member Finlay Gordon-McCusker claimed that Meir Station had been a 'pipe dream' under the previous Conservative government, with no funding set aside for the scheme.

He also suggested that as a deprived area, Meir could be better served by improving bus services, and pointed out that this had already started under the council's Bus Service Improvement Plan.

Cllr Gordon-McCusker added: "RYR was a great aspiration, and one that I share and I hope that this government and future governments will continue, because clearly we need more rail services in the country and in the city.

"But reading through the strategic business case, it does make it very clear that there's a massive problem with capacity in rail. So what we're talking about isn't just reopening one station, it's a much broader revamp of rail services, not just in North Staffordshire, but across the country."

"We share your aspiration to have Meir station reopened. But we're in the same situation as the previous administration, we can't do it alone and we need the funding."

In March the council wrote a letter to Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander requesting an update on the Meir Station project and for a final decision to be made. Cllr Gordon-McCusker agreed to write a second letter to the government referring to the petition and the continued support for reopening the station.

A Department for Transport spokesperson said: "We are committed to delivering transport infrastructure that will boost growth and opportunity across the whole country, as part of our Plan for Change.

"The Government inherited an extremely challenging financial position, and these projects will be considered as part of the upcoming Spending Review."

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