Question

East Reading Park and Ride:  This site by the Thames riverbank at the north end of the A3290, just to the east of Kennet Mouth, has been purchased by Wokingham.  Planning permission has been given for a 258-place Park and Ride site primarily to address demand from regular weekday morning peak-hour traffic into Reading.  It was projected to cost £3.6 million with operational costs of £45,000 per year.  The site has been cleared of trees and scrub but if left the vegetation will revert to ‘green’ landscape and wildlife habitat.  I am concerned that: The operational and maintenance costs may have been underestimated and the revenues from such a small site overestimated; In use, especially with lighting, it will adversely affect landscape and amenity and wildlife habitat; To address cost, congestion, clean air and climate change it would be better if commuters used public transport or shared vehicles for the greater part of their journeys rather than taking cars so close to Reading; In particular it will increase traffic in the area around Suttons roundabout increasing congestion suffered by peak hour traffic to and from Reading.  I think the Council should put this project on hold and re-assess it before spending more public money on it and causing long-term environmental loss. Priority should be given to getting more residents to use bus or train for most of the distance from their homes to Reading.  If the Council is still convinced that Park and Ride in the proposed area is a good idea it should run a trial scheme using the vacant car parks in Thames Valley Park to test viability.  What are the current plans, timescales and cost projections for this proposed Park and Ride?

East Reading Park and Ride: This site by the Thames riverbank at the north end of the A3290, just to the east of Kennet Mouth, has been purchased by Wokingham.  Planning permission has been given for a 258-place Park and Ride site primarily to address demand from regular weekday morning peak-hour traffic into Reading. It was projected to cost £3.6 million with operational costs of £45,000 per year. The site has been cleared of trees and scrub but if left the vegetation will revert to ‘green’ landscape and wildlife habitat. I am concerned that: The operational and maintenance costs may have been underestimated and the revenues from such a small site overestimated; In use, especially with lighting, it will adversely affect landscape and amenity and wildlife habitat; To address cost, congestion, clean air and climate change it would be better if commuters used public transport or shared vehicles for the greater part of their journeys rather than taking cars so close to Reading; In particular it will increase traffic in the area around Suttons roundabout increasing congestion suffered by peak hour traffic to and from Reading. I think the Council should put this project on hold and re-assess it before spending more public money on it and causing long-term environmental loss. Priority should be given to getting more residents to use bus or train for most of the distance from their homes to Reading.  If the Council is still convinced that Park and Ride in the proposed area is a good idea it should run a trial scheme using the vacant car parks in Thames Valley Park to test viability.  What are the current plans, timescales and cost projections for this proposed Park and Ride?

Answer

The Thames Valley Park and Ride is funded through the Local Enterprise Partnership and has been subject to rigorous analysis by the Department of Transport’s WebTAG evaluation system.  Therefore the costs and the revenues and the viability have been assessed and reassessed because it is, as you rightly say, public money, and it is Government public money that we are using.  Therefore, I think there is no doubt that we have the costs and the revenues on the viability and the need of this scheme.  We have considered it and it has passed the test.  Therefore we will continue to proceed with it and aspects you talked about in respect of public transport.  That is really why we are building this scheme, because people want to get close to this scheme before they use the buses.  They do not want to take buses from long distance and we believe that this will have a positive impact on congestion within Reading and climate change and all the other environmental aspects that, that will bring to Reading itself.

Supplementary Question:

I asked particularly about timescales for actually starting the next phase of the development work on this site.  Can you enlighten me a bit more about the Council’s thinking on this?

Supplementary Answer:

I am going to have to give you a written answer as I cannot remember the exact dates, but I will let you know.