With approval to run trains between Swindon, Taunton and Weston-super-Mare, services could start in 2026

The idea for the country’s first cooperative rail service came to Alex Lawrie in 2004 after another frustrating trip across Somerset.

Having moved to Yeovil four years earlier with his young family, his job as a cooperative development manager involved daily trips across the south-west trying to set up member-owned businesses.