Park and ride is mothballed

At present the car park is operating at half capacity with an average of 315 people a day using it last year.

The council has cited poor demand for the mothballing of the site, which it claims will be up and running once the Wichelstowe development begins to take shape.

However, while admitting the park and ride's location may have contributed to its poor usage, Coun Peter Greenhalgh, Swindon Council's cabinet member for highways, transport and strategic planning, refused to criticise the previous Labour administration for identifying Wroughton as the ideal site.

And he said that the closure of the park and ride was not a crude money making scheme dreamed up by the council's number crunchers to generate more revenue via town centre parking.

He said the Wroughton park and ride scheme was not cost effective, but that the council remained committed to using park and ride to reduce traffic congestion on Swindon's roads.

"There is a cost to the council in maintaining the site," Coun Greenhalgh said.

"It is just whether or not it is sustainable and whether or not it is correct for us to continue spending money on a project which perhaps is not the best use of resources at the present time.

"The mothballing is a temporary shut down of services on the site.

"Obviously we could spend more money on promoting the site, but there are certain issues with regard to access and it is not being used by as many people as we would have hoped.

"We still have the other park and ride scheme commuters can use and we will be looking at alternative provisions to help people and that includes looking at better locations for park and ride."

He added: "I'm sure the previous administration decided on Wroughton as a park and ride site with the best of intentions, but there are sites that could have been better.

"But you have to look at what was available at the time and it could have been that the land at Commonhead was not available then, but then hindsight is a wonderful thing."

Coun Greenhalgh said the decision to mothball the park and ride at Wroughton was taken after the council put together its Local Transport Plan and that the scheme was not closed for good.

He said: "My gut feeling is that it will be open again in a couple of years.

"Park and ride is part of our transport strategy. We are not reducing it in the long term and we are not saying we are not going to use it.

"We have got a lot of building work taking place with Wichelstowe and that proposal will give the Wroughton park and ride a boost in the future."

Last year 313,000 people used Swindon's two park and ride schemes, with just over a third of those using Wroughton compared to the Copse park and ride, off Cricklade Road.

Wroughton park and ride was opened in April 2002 and cost £2m. It has 640 car parking spaces.

As revealed by the Adver yesterday, discussions to build a new park and ride scheme at Commonhead next to the Great Western Hospital are continuing, while the council has not ruled out the possibility of further schemes at the Science Museum in Wroughton and near junction 16 of the M4.

Coun Greenhalgh said: "We don't discount anything and we are always looking for opportunities to minimise the volume of traffic in the town centre specifically.

"One of the key points with the regeneration scheme is that we are looking to minimise traffic flows more efficiently."

Under proposals outlined in the council's five-year Local Transport Plan, computer-controlled junctions and signposts will be used to ensure drivers take the most direct route to car parks and a Punctuality Improvement Partnership will also be set up to improve the efficiency of public transport.

In the meantime, Coun Greenhalgh has reassured drivers they will still be able to park in the town centre.

"Car parking is not full to capacity in the town centre and while there are traffic issues in certain areas, I don't think traffic flows are too bad for now," Coun Greenhalgh said.

"But we are looking at alternative provision to help those drivers affected by the closure of the Wroughton park and ride."

£2m price tag was a millstone

THE Wroughton park and ride was opened in April 2002, and at the time was hoped to relieve the number of cars trying to get in and out of Swindon town centre each day.

It cost £2m, but the price tag proved to be a millstone round Swindon Council's neck. While the Copse park and ride near Penhill was soon a success, an Adver investigation in August of that year showed that of 132 bus journeys made on one day, 76 had no passengers. Just 190 people were seen on the buses, and less than 80 cars were parked there all day.

There had been some who had already said it was a waste of money before it even opened. In October 2001 council leader Mike Bawden said the ruling Conservative group were having second thoughts. It was due to lose £200,000 in its first year and Coun Bawden said there were serious considerations about whether that money could have been better spent on the education and social services departments, which at the time were struggling.

However, while the Tories had doubts of the scheme's merits, the Labour and Liberal Democrat groups were adamant it had to be completed and kept running.

It had been envisaged that Wroughton - or Croft, as it is also known - would be the second of six park and rides in Swindon. The others were to be at Commonhead, junction 16, Pipers Way, near Honda and in Oxford Road. The first to open was the Copse, which was launched by then transport minister Glenda Jackson in November 1998.