Railway station 'built in wrong place'

A second railway station will have to be built in an Yvelines town - because the first one has been constructed in the wrong place.

The new station in Mantes-la-Ville is set to open in 2024, when the RER E line extension reaches the town to the west of Paris.

But the building was erected on SNCF land "too quickly", and contractors failed to take into account "the development of the whole area", a member of the commune's public planning authority told Le Parisien. As a result, the site, "does not fit with the overall plan for the area".

The blunder means a second building will have to be constructed some 10m away from the original. But the work on the original has not been in vain, officials have said. Rather than demolishing it, the badly placed station will be put to another use.