“I am very concerned that the Government is trying to save money in the rail industry at the expense of local communities like Melksham.

“There are big pressures and cost issues in the rail industry but they are nothing to do with local rural rail services, they are all about the amount of money being pumped into Network Rail, the big company that runs the tracking signals all round the network. I just think its plain wrong to be cutting services in a place like this. It will destroy the passenger railway into Melksham. You can’t take out two thirds of your local railway trains and still expect passengers to turn up for the rest of them.

“If you cut back the services, fewer people use it, then you can say it’s unpopular and nobody wants it. I just don’t think a growing town like Melksham, with a population of 23,000 and many more on the way, can afford to be without public transport.”

The Shadow Transport Minister said that this meeting is part of a campaign his team has been running at Westminster on behalf of different groups around the country. “It’s not just Melksham,” he said, “you’ve got similar situations in parts of Hampshire, in Cornwall, in towns in the midlands, even in parts of Birmingham, where local services that people use regularly are being scaled back normally for reasons of cost cutting. I just think it’s wrong.”

He said he was impressed with the local support for the campaign. “I am very pleased with the turn-out, there is obviously a very good local campaign here and you need that,” he said.. “You need people in the local community to stand up and shout, because without that it’s much more difficult for us at Westminster to fight the cause for services like this one.”