Council spent not sure how much money and blocked road for years to develop parking space for park & Ride and after spending so much money and time and made everyones life hell there is no money for Park & Ride.

1. How much money was spent on what in details for the project and what are we doing about it now.

Business Cases were produced justifying the expenditure on the Park & Ride upgrade works which show that the increase in capacity would provide value for money. These were reviewed and audited by an independent consultant working for the Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP). The majority of the works at Winnersh Triangle were funded by the LEP and Frasers Property, the owners of Winnersh Business Park. £4.3million of funding was provided in Local Growth Funds through the Thames Valley Berkshire LEP and £1.5million from Frasers Property. The final cost of the project is not yet known as the final construction costs need to be agreed with the contractors. The Pandemic has clearly had an impact on the relevance of these business cases; it is hoped that in the long term, the Park and Ride will return to being a successful facility for our residents. The business case for the work details what the funding was spent on and can be found here: https://www.myjourneywokingham.com/bus-travel/park-and-ride/winnersh-triangle-park-ride/

Unfortunately, there has since been a drastic decline in the demand for Park and Ride Services since the start of Covid-19, for instance, Mereoak Park and Ride was operating with below 50% of the pre-pandemic number of passengers in May 2023; this is not an issue specific to Wokingham with Park and Ride across the country struggling. Reading Buses provided the commercial bus service prior to the pandemic and, as the main bus operator in the area, it is likely that they would provide the new service. However, because the service is commercial, any bus operator is able to register a service here and pick up passengers and they will decide when to operate a service. At present, they will not be able to provide a service as there would be a huge gap in the cost to provide the service compared to the amount people pay which the operators, and the Council, cannot afford to fill.

Wokingham Borough Council is continuing to liaise with Reading Buses and monitoring the performance of other Park and Ride sites nationally. We are aware that that there is demand from many people who wish to use the service, however, at present this is not enough to clearly demonstrate to the bus company that they will make enough money to operate without a loss.

There might be a situation where Wokingham Borough Council subsidises the service, however, WBC are facing significant financial pressures and so any service here will need to prove sustainable and run at no cost to the council in the longer term. There might be an opportunity for Wokingham to provide a fund to initiate the service and support the bus operator until the service becomes self-sustaining, however, the cost and timing of this will depend very much on demand for the service; the decision for providing this funding would be made by our Councillors.

Until the bus service is provided, residents are able to park at the newly opened car park and either use the train service into Reading or walk under the rail bridge and to the A329 in order to take the X4/4, Reading Buses’ express service into Reading. Alternatively, customers can drive to Mereoak Park and Ride (south of M4 J11 off the A33) and take the park and ride bus into Reading town centre from there.