Park and Ride loses £30k per month

A council has been accused of throwing money "in the bin" by continuing to run a park and ride site in Kent.

The Sturry Road service on the outskirts of Canterbury causes more pollution than it prevents and loses almost £30,000 a month, reports the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

New data shows passengers from a daily average of just 89 cars are being ferried into the city centre on largely empty diesel buses running almost 80 times a day.

Andrew Harvey, a Green Party Canterbury City Councillor, said: “Effectively we are almost replacing each car with a bus, which is clearly ludicrous.”

Canterbury City Council (CCC) said it expects a £5 million surplus from parking revenue as a whole this year, but it has estimated a £388,388 shortfall in covering its contract with Stagecoach to run the park and ride service.

It also said the entire park and ride service, which includes two other sites in Wincheap and New Dover Road, now generates more CO2 than it saves.

The council report reads: “It is estimated the current operation with diesel buses is generating approximately 143 tonnes of CO2 a year more than it is saving.”

Before the Covid pandemic, the wider service saved 100 tonnes of CO2 a year.

The service had been pulled in 2022 by the former Conservative council because it was underused and costing too much.

It reopened in April.

Lib Dem councillor Alex Ricketts, cabinet member for transport, said user numbers are “moving in the right direction”, with almost 600 more vehicles at the Sturry Road site in July than in April.

But conservative councillor Dan Watkins said: “That £5 million we are on track to make [from parking] doesn’t justify just putting £400,000 in the bin because we have an ideological desire to keep open a park and ride that doesn’t perform that well.”

The authority’s latest report has outlined efforts to increase park and ride usage by an average of 10% per year.

Measures include cutting the number of city centre parking spaces by 10% and potentially running buses until as late as midnight.

The council said it will also consider zero-emission buses and described installing a new bus lane along Sturry Road as a “key priority”.

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