Plans to restore the semi-derelict ‘gateway to Cornwall’ have taken steps forward.

A £102,314 grant from Great Western Railway has added to the funding package Saltash Town Council is building to renovate the town’s dilapidated railway station.

And formal plans for its refurbishment have now been lodged with Cornwall Council planners.

The building ceased being used as a train station and was sold off by Network Rail in the mid 1990s.

Since then the site transferred ownership several times until, in 2017, Saltash Town Council bought the site.

Since then the town council has set up a working party and overseen various consultations about the future of the station, described as the first thing visitors see as they arrive in the county by rail and therefore a ‘gateway to Cornwall’.

The resulting planning application is for the partial demolition, refurbishment and rebuild of the station building to provide improved facilities for rail travellers including WCs, a waiting room, a cafe, an office and associated works. There would also be workplaces for business or flexible use, one of them in a newly built extension to replace the crumbing north-east section of the building.

The final project may have to be delivered in phases according to funding.

It is proposed that the first phase includes the demolition of the north-eastern section of the building, external refurbishment and a replacement floor slab. Full internal fitting out would initially be restricted to the core passenger services including the toilets and waiting room.

The refurbishment of the remaining space and the extension to re-build the north-east wing could then follow on as subsequent phases of work.

In the final year of a scheme to support community-led projects, train operator GWR said Saltash Station is among the latest successful schemes in the South West to benefit from a share of a multi-million-pound funding pot.

Saltash Town Council have been awarded £102,314 for the station project.

GWR managing director Mark Hopwood said: ‘We are committed to improving the journeys of our passengers, as well as the economic prosperity and social footprint of the regions and communities we serve.’

The planning application can be viewed and commented upon at Cornwall Council’s online planning register planning.cornwall.gov.uk using the reference number PA18/05319.