Question
With regards to the Coppid Beach Park and Ride, the Climate Emergency Action Plan states in outcomes a "10% increase in the number of Wokingham borough residents who use a train or park and ride at least once a week." But I contend that is a fallacy in that residents on that side of Wokingham do not need a place to park vehicles and residents from other parts of the town will have to drive past the town to get to it (if used the town would then lose car park income).
Therefore, the use case is of people from outside of town using it (which leads to some interesting thoughts). This leads to a query about the sustainability and business case for this park and ride.
How will this park and ride contribute to the climate emergency action plan bearing in mind the continued need to monitor it to demonstrate its worth?
Minutes:
Question
With regards to the Coppid Beach Park and Ride, the Climate Emergency Action Plan states in outcomes a "10% increase in the number of Wokingham borough residents who use a train or park and ride at least once a week." But I contend that is a fallacy in that residents on that side of Wokingham do not need a place to park vehicles and residents from other parts of the town will have to drive past the town to get to it (if used the town would then lose car park income).
Therefore, the use case is of people from outside of town using it (which leads to some interesting thoughts). This leads to a query about the sustainability and business case for this park and ride.
How will this park and ride contribute to the climate emergency action plan bearing in mind the continued need to monitor it to demonstrate its worth?
Answer
The Coppid Beech Park and Ride has a full “WebTAG compliant” Business Case, which was completed in order to attract funding from the Local Enterprise Partnership. This case has been independently assessed and verified. The business case suggests that there will be users parking here and travelling to both Bracknell and Wokingham Town Centres which will reduce the number of single occupancy car journeys and carbon emissions.
The Park and Ride was actually proposed and designed before the Council declared a Climate Emergency, as a means of reducing congestion for the town centre. The Climate Emergency Action Plan reductions rely partly on increases in Park and Ride and train use. So the business case wasn’t around Climate Emergency, but does help to contribute to that.
It is likely that the carbon saving will be from those travelling from the east of the Borough to access Wokingham town centre (it is not just for people in Wokingham) as well as those from within the Borough accessing Bracknell town centre. Even though some of these people may not be travelling from within the Borough, a large number will be. I hope you will agree that cutting their carbon intensive journey short is still a good thing. The aim of the car park is to reduce the number of car trips into Wokingham, thereby reducing mileage by private car which delivers carbon reductions.
Finally, we will be investigating the possibility of providing other links such as between Coppid Beech and Twyford Station, to improve public access to the express train network, further reducing car journeys.
Supplementary Question
Looking at the financials, this car park is costing £2.7m which equates roughly to 5% of the Climate budget from previous years. But the actual saving is going to be less than 0.005% of the Climate budget. When you look at this costing, the maximum cost of a cycle lane, according to Manchester, where they built it is £1.5m per km. As such, I would contend that this money would have been better spent on a proper cycling facility that actually did go down London Road, that is, the stretch from Coppid Beech to the town centre. How does that equate?
Supplementary Answer
It equates, as I said before, as the business case was approved before the Climate Emergency. It wasn’t based on Climate Emergency, it was based on reducing congestion. As you have seen, and will hear more on later, we have significant plans for improving cycleways. It is not an either or. This plan was before Climate Emergency and the business case was not predicated on climate change achievements. It was predicated on a good business case which was independently assessed.
With regard to the Climate Emergency Action Plan, there is an outcome which relates to all of our Park and Ride Sites which is an increase in Park and Ride and train use. You are correct, however, that in this example it is likely that the carbon saving will potentially be from those travelling from outside our borough to access Wokingham Town Centre, as well as those from within the borough accessing Bracknell Town Centre. Even though some of these people are not travelling from within the Borough, I hope you will agree that cutting their carbon intensive journey short is still a good thing. The aim of the car park is to reduce the number of trips coming into both Town Centres, thus reducing mileage by private car, which will result in these Carbon savings as well as other benefits such as reduced congestion.