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Coventry City and Wasps fans are being told not to use the new Ricoh Arena railway station to get to and from matches.

The new station at the stadium is due to open next month as part of a £13.6million project to improve the Nuneaton to Coventry rail line but safety fears mean it will be shut for an hour after the final whistle on matchdays.

That’s because the trains will only be able to carry 75 passengers and operator London Midland will only put on one train an hour.

London Midland are now telling sports fans to stick to existing bus services instead.

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Concerns about overcrowding at the unmanned station have led the independent stadium Safety Advisory Group to order the one-hour closure after major events, including sports fixtures and concerts.

London Midland has also said there will be no expansion to the hourly service on matchdays.

A spokesman for the train operator told the Telegraph: “The issue is that the service is one single diesel carriage that has 75 seats. We have been clear about that from the start of the project.

“At the moment there aren’t any more trains available in the country to run that service.

“The main message is that, as soon as the station opens, everybody going to Coventry City or Wasps games simply won’t be able to get the train.

“Our advice is to continue to use the existing bus services to get to and from games.”

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He added: “We have been told by the Safety Advisory Group that the station will have to be closed for an hour after matches or events."

London Midland said it was working closely with stadium operators Wasps to come up with other solutions, but added that it did not foresee an obvious or immediate answer to the problem.

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The spokesman added: “The big challenge we have at the arena is that we could potentially have 32,000 people attending.

"Technically, we could take up to 10 per cent of that crowd. But we have been told we have to close the station after matches.

“People could potentially be waiting one hour 59 minutes between services at the end of a match.

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“In the future, when the line is electrified, all sorts of thing could be possible - but we’re not there yet.”

Coventry City Council will own the new station and has invested heavily in the site which is part of a wider £13.6million investment which also includes platform extensions at Bedworth and Coventry.