I'm annoyed !

Has any reason been given for closing it?

Same here nina on top of that their building thousands of new family houses,with only one main road into town. It doesn't bear thinking about. Who are these clever people in the town planning

It aint the town planners, it is the * government insisting that the Local Aiuthorities have to give consent to developers for thousands of more houses with no money for infrastructure.

They couldn't agree a price for the renewal of lease.
It will probably end up as retail units. A new two story Next has recently opened adjacent to the plot.

You are spot on Monica ! It is crazy beyond belief . The havoc this government is causing will take years and years to sort out if it ever can be . Selling off the NHS by the back door , Socially cleansing London, the bedroom tax making thousands of families homeless to name but a few of their madcap ideas . When will it ever end !

If they turn the P&R into retail units where will the customers for the units park?

They couldn't agree a price for the renewal of lease. It will probably end up as retail units
Can't quite see how the Government can be blamed for that MOnica
The thought process doesn't seem logical:

* The two parties involved in renewing the lease couldn't agree a price - was one of them the Government? OP didn't say that
* The OP wonders if it could end up as retail units
* The Government says we need to build more new homes (would anyone disagree with that?). A separate issue not mentioned in the OP.
* Does Government policy advocate park and ride or not? The only protest against P&R I have noticed has been by a Green Party member. Tories would seem to be in favour.

Therefore it is the Government's fault that the P&R is closing? totally

I suppose if the P&R is turned into retail units the car parking will be outside the buildings as it always is.

However, I do think it should be sorted out as there should be more, not fewer, Park and Rides.

Believe it or not, the previous government's local transport policy never even mentioned P&R. It's policy from 2010 until 2015 mainly focused on walking, buses and cycling. I suspect it was the Lib Dem influence. The policy stated 55% of car journeys are under 5 miles and many of these trips could be walked, or made by bike or public transport. So the funding was for projects that make these ways of travel more attractive and encourages people to leave the car at home. There was something about a 'door to door' approach which basically meant making it possible to get from A to B using one or a combination of the three methods of transport.

In practice what happened was when a council had a big project on the go like a new shopping centre, it included developing ways of making it easier to get there without using a car. Then it was eligible to apply for money to finance the development from government funding.

That policy was only until the end of last year, so at the moment there is no policy and no funding for improving local transport. Given that there's no coalition now and the government is still pursuing austerity measures, I seriously doubt if there will be any funding at all.

Just to clarify it was the council and the land owner that couldn't agree a price. The site has been. P&R for many years. I suspect the land owner thinks that due to the Next retail development it's more lucrative to sell to a developer.
Living in the sticks this is my nearest large town and it's 40min drive, so no chance of walking

This is more a rant about P&R.
We here in Berkshire have recently had our P&R facility moved to a new location. The old one was prone to flooding, so in theory the new site was a good idea. But, it is now next to a train station, so commuters are of course using the site, and folk just wanting to travel into Reading are being squeezed out.
Admittedly I haven't yet plucked up courage to try this out, but have been told that now there is only one bus stop, on the road, instead of the 2/3 that there were previously on site. There is now a long walk to the bus stop and consequently buses are running empty. Progress! I think not, especially as a lot of the would be P&R users would be going to hospital for treatment and appointments.

You'd think they could devise a system that allowed only the bus users to park wouldn't you AuntieFlo* daft.

ninathenana I wasn't having a rant in my previous post - I just was unable to follow the logic of an other poster(s) saying it was the fault of the government without giving reasons why.

Don't worry Jalima your post was logical and well thought out. This is a local government issue, either District Council or County Council depending on who owns the land and which planning regs it comes under.

And of course local councils can be of any political flavour - or none!!

Thank you Anya, I did think 'oops' after I posted and thought I was being too Spock-like

Jalima it didn't occur to me that you were ranting
I just thought more info was required.

Must everything be blamed on central government? In this case it seems to be the owner of the land and not anything to do with any kind of government.

Anya just to clear up another point. The local council were renting the site from a private land owner

There does seem to be an knee-jerk "blame the Government" reaction at times. They don't control every transaction that takes place in every town.

Whilst it may be a local council issue our local councils can be supported or hindered by central government decisions, e.g. capping rates, setting spending / saving targets etc. It would be truly naive to think that some local council decisions are not heavily influenced by the need to save money/hit a centrally imposed target to avoid a penalty etc.

It may be that at the time of renegotiating the lease for the P&R it was a choice between using £xxxk for the increased P&R lease or £xxxk for providing transport for disabled children.

In the past it might have been possible to provide both but the 'austerity' measures, heavily focussed on local council services, mean these "rock and a hard place" decisions are happening more and more. Public services, having been portrayed as money wasting, inefficient and unnecessary services by successive governments so have been gradually eroded. We will miss them hen they have gone. And it is central governments that have done it.

I think we all have to make choices how we allocate our finances. Anyone who has ever been made redundant or had to pay a large amount for something unexpected will understand that. In the case of local councils and government the choices must be even harder as they have to either take more money from us or reduce spending. Damned if they do and damned if they don't. Glad I'm not a politician.

This sounds like High Wycombe where a new Next has been built on an edge of town site where a large p & r car park was situated. I did wonder about the sense of the planning permission as the nearby John Lewis was not allowed for years to sell clothes as this would draw custom from the town. Then JL was, after a decade, allowed to sell clothing as the new Next selling both home goods and clothing was also given PP. It seemed a strange decision to me as the argument still stands. BOTH stores are drawing crowds away from the town centre shopping streets. AND the parking situation has reached boiling point.
Crazy.

This government is not guilty of"madcap" ideas, but ones borne of self interest and (maybe latent, but in their genes) class hatred and self interest. Who are the working class people who voted them in, a bunch of forelock- tugging serfs?

Ninathenana is this area in Kent if so I believe the said park & ride is going to become a waitrose so I hear on the grapevine but don't quote me I could be wrong ?.