Proposed changes to Winchester park and ride services (From Hampshire Chronicle)

Proposed changes to Winchester park and ride services

4:16pm Monday 20th February 2012 in News By Andrew Napier

The main park and ride near Bushfield

WINCHESTER civic chiefs are poised to cut evening bus services for park and ride.

But more buses are set to run in the early morning to better serve commuters at the railway station.

The city council says the current timetable sees too many near-empty evening buses so it wants to end the service at 8.45pm instead of 9.30pm.

However more buses could soon run in the morning. Currently the first bus arrives at the train station at 7.15am so missing services to Waterloo at 6.48am, 6.55am and 7.05am.

Discussions will be held with Stagecoach to alter the services. Councillors were due to discuss the issue tomorrow (Tuesday) at the traffic and parking sub-committee.

The proposed amended timetable could save £38,118 from the current £786,911 contract.

Park and ride underwent a big expansion in April 2010 with the opening of the new car park off Otterbourne Road. Spaces increased from 785 to 1,650.

On an average day it sees 2,500-3,000 passenger trips although last Christmas that soared to 8,000.

In a council report, Andy Hickman, head of access, said the service was extended to 9.30pm in April 2010 when the southern park and ride opened. “It was hoped that the evening services would be better used and as such benefit the evening economy...It is not felt that stopping services 45 minutes earlier will impact on the economy or disadvantage large numbers of people and this is compensated for by the proposed earlier buses aimed at helping people catch early trains.”

Meanwhile the report said the county council has no plans to continue using its ‘temporary’ 250-space car park at Bar End beyond March 2013.