THE North Dorset Railway (NDR) has submitted plans for a new car park near its Shillingstone Station base.

The scheme would see a car park created on an “uncultivated field” at Bere Marsh, linked to the station by the North Dorset Trailway.

It comes as the railway has “attracted a growing number of volunteers” who require parking, as well as visitors.

“The car park will be used for NDR volunteer and Shillingstone Station visitor parking, the demand for which has already significantly outgrown the existing car park spaces at the station, which were provided as part of the original planning permission granted in 2005 for the use of the station site as a museum,” the application said.

“As NDR moves towards operational status (with the planned introduction of passenger rides from the station in the next few years) and continues to grow as a tourist destination, the proposed car park will meet the projected increases in demand from both volunteers and visitors to the heritage railway.”

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Currently, the railway uses the forecourt of nearby Perkins, but the application said that arrangement “will shortly be changing”.

“When this arrangement ceases, it will have an extremely detrimental effect on NDR’s ability to continue to function as a heritage railway and visitor attraction, unless a suitable car park can be provided.”

It continued: “The preferred site at Bere Marsh, the subject of this application, is relatively close to the station and provides safe pedestrian access to it, via the North Dorset Trailway, without people having to cross the public highway.”

The application said the car park would enable the railway to “develop further as a visitor attraction”, in a bid to become a “source of recreation, education and fascination with its concept of a living museum at Shillingstone Station and with the development of an operational heritage railway”.

For more details, and to comment on the plans, log on to www.dorset.gov.uk and search for application reference P/FUL/2023/04880.