It has been confirmed that Okehampton Station’s cafe is set to open at the end of this month in the next stage of the station’s refurbishment.

Amazing Brownie Bakers, which will be running the cafe, will move from their temporary premises on the station into the station’s cafe, which will be named Bulleid Buffet - its original on September 24 as station use continues to exceed expectations.

Leanne Knight, who runs Amazing Brownie Bakers, said: ‘We are very excited. It’s taken a lot of to-ing and fro-ing but we are finally getting there. We are still waiting for the paperwork but it will be all hands on deck soon. It helps having a date.

‘Everyone’s been asking and wanting to know the date but we haven’t known it until very recently.’

Following the change of premises, Leanne and her team are planning to extend the cafe’s services to include breakfasts and lunches on the menu and an outside seating area for train passengers to enjoy. The cafe will also house the station’s toilets which will be open for public use from September 24 - the same day as the cafe opens.

Leanne added: ‘We will be serving breakfasts, lunches and a lot of takeaways for people on the train and we are working on making it a licenced property so people can enjoy a glass of wine.

‘We will have a bigger menu and we are going to have outside seating on the platform.’

But Leanne said that she was most excited about being part of the Okehampton Station success story.

She added: ‘I’m most excited about bringing our produce to the local Okehampton community. It’s nice to be in a town location and a busy one. We are very lucky with the number of passengers going up all the time.

‘We’ve got a team who are very keen to keep working. I have got staff who were 13 when they started working for me and now they are in their twenties.

‘It will also be great for more people to know we are here.’

The cafe refurbishment is part of Okehampton station’s renewal which will also include the opening of a Dartmoor Railway Association shop and a Platform 3 waiting room.

Okehampton Station reopened in November last year, after being shut for nearly 50 years, offering passengers a two-hourly service to and from Exeter.

It has proved to be so successful that GWR and Network Rail upgraded the track earlier this year in order to improve the Exeter-Okehampton line and run an hourly service.

Okehampton Town Council has been closely involved in the re-opening of the railway and is now working on other projects to increase tourism in the town.

Working with West Devon Borough Council, the town council has applied for funding for a new Okehampton Parkway station which would be built on the eastern side of the town.

This is the councils’ second attempt to obtain funding for the station as part of the Government’s Levelling Up scheme.