Council builds £51m park and ride that can’t be used as there’s no road
A council has defended its decision to build a park and ride site that can't be used - because it has no access road.
The funding to construct the road in and out of the car park in Eynsham, Oxfordshire, has not yet been secured, even though the site itself is already in place after costing £51m. The council admitted the park and ride, which has 850 spaces, will not be fully operational for another two or three years.
The car park, located off the A40, was completed in January apart from some landscaping which is ongoing and should be completed next month.
There are plans for a new roundabout to make it easy to access the park and ride from either direction, but the council said it is still in the process of securing funding.
Conservative Party councillor Liam Walker said: “My understanding is that the park and ride site will soon be complete, but then it's going to be shut for a number of years while the county council work to install the access.
"This is a disappointing and a backwards way to do things in my mind as it means the site cannot be used when we now have a regular bus service into Oxford passing and also into London."
Last July, the council approved a new plan to complete the £180m overall A40 improvement plan in phases. All major construction work at the park and ride, which will include cycle parking and electric vehicle charging points, was completed in January.
Officials say the park-and-ride will cut up to a third of the peak traffic travelling in each direction on the heavily congested A40 between Witney and Oxford.
Click below to see the latest South and South East headlines
A spokesperson for Oxfordshire County Council said: “Completing the park and ride site now, ahead of the rest of the work in the area which required more complicated approval, has saved millions of pounds in inflation and construction costs.
"We are talking to Homes England and the Department for Transport, the main funding bodies for the programme, to agree a way forward. Our conversations with them are at an advanced stage and we hope to be able to share more soon.
"The current timeline suggests the park and ride could be fully in use by 2026 or 2027, subject to planning and construction.”
How does a park and ride scheme work in the UK?
There are thought to be more than 150 park-and-ride sites across the UK, and they are usually located outside city or town centres and were created to ease road congestion.
Users typically park their car for free then pay a bus fare to go into a city centre. Most of the major towns and cities in the UK have park and ride schemes.
The impact of park and ride schemes on the environment has long been debated, with the Institute for Transport at the University of Leeds saying that while they can lead to a reduction in traffic and air pollution in urban areas, those benefits may be partially offset by the resulting increase in cars in the scheme's location.
The first permanent park and ride in the UK was opened in Oxford in December 1973 and comprised a car park and a dedicated bus service.
That site at Redbridge is still running today, growing from 250 spaces 51 years ago to 1,500 in 2024.
Oxfordshire now runs the largest park and ride system in the UK, with almost 6,000 parking spaces at five sites around the city of Oxford.
