I'm annoyed !

Nonnie that's the point isn't it? Central government provides the money and local government decides how it should be spent. Essential services will have priority over services like P&R. Essential services are cut to the bone, so other things just
drop away.

As for where more money comes from, well that's down to the political will of government. Our surviving P&R is already privatised, but was subsidised by the local authority. That subsidy was stopped, so now we have a P&R service which is not large enough for the city, but profitable for the bus company.

I have seen public services go from being provided by the relevant public authorities, to being provided by private companies with subsidies from those authorities, to disappearing altogether.

I don't mind paying more tax to provide public services, but others do. That's beside the point though on this thread.

Ninathenana have you tried streetlife it's local online social website about things that go on in our town, also recommends where you can get things done, the council. It's www.streetlife.com it's also been talking about the park & ride and other things.

Wilma if central government are responsible and should give the LAs more money, what should they cut instead? Or how should they get the extra money in?

Coventry lost its 2nd P&R in 2013. Apparently on average only 3 passengers used each service, so it was not considered viable any more. I worked with someone whose car was stolen from the P&R when she was at work and at that time the car park was full with commuters every weekday, making it hard to find a space. I wonder why the service became so unpopular?

Our other P&R is a nightmare during the week because of the cost of weekly or monthly bus passes. A weekly pass is roughly 2 days parking costs in a city car park and a monthly pass is even better value. There's 5 buses an hour and it's just a short journey. Even on a Saturday it's hard to find a space and there's 3 buses an hour then.

It's not too hard to find a parking space in the city centre, but the cost is high. I wish there was a P&R on my side of the city. I just avoid the city centre and shop at retail parks.

I mentioned government policy because central government does control how much money each local authority gets every year and at the moment, there's no money at all available for local transport/infrastructure initiatives like P&R.

So local authorities have had to manage going from receiving money in their budgets for infrastructure initiatives to reduce car use, to having to apply for funding for every individual initiative, to no money at all.

Obviously existing services still have to be managed and the might mean reducing services to balance the budget. The decision may be taken locally, but central government holds the purse strings.

Stockport has a big, new free P&R on the A6 at Hazel Grove. I have used it once to catch the 192 bus into Manchester. The P&R was almost empty. Whether that was because it was still quite new, I don't know, but have a feeling that commuters into Manchester are more likely to go by train - the bus journey is painfully slow. If time was important to me, I'd use the train although the bus is completely free for me. There's another P&R at Didsbury by the tram terminus and I gather that it is well used.

Our P&R has introduced a £1 return fare for those of us with a travel card. Still cheaper than parking in town and cheaper than the train fair.

I am another who lives near Oxford, but to the south. Getting into Oxford is no easier from that direction.

I have given up going to Oxford. I shop in Witney and have just resigned from a society I have belonged to for many years because of the shear impossibility of getting into Oxford for meetings.

Oxford (shires) latest bright idea is to shut down the south and western P&Rs and replace them with a new P&R 7 miles away on the outskirts of Abingdon with a regular shuttle bus running (or more likely standing still) along the A34 between Abingdon and Oxford.

I have used that P&R cc (the one near Weston?) and it is quite a trek from the M4 but then I wonder if people are coming into the P&R from other directions too so further out near the M4 wouldn't be so good for them.

Phoebes when DH and I visited Oxford we were surprised to have to pay for parking and pay on the bus too.

We live just outside Oxford and the county council, in its wisdom, decided to replace both the roundabouts on the roads from the north into Oxford with traffic lights instead of roundabouts. At the same time, the council was replacing the lights at one of the big bottlenecks in Oxford, on the road leading to the railway station, with a roundabout! This has improved things no end! It is almost impossible to get into Oxford in the rush hour because of the road works on the roundabouts, and the traffic jams can go on until 10am. The two roads are parallel and are the only way into Oxford from the north so you can't avoid the works. We don't go into Oxford any more because of the queues and prefer to do our shopping in Banbury or Witney instead. We never see anyone working on the roundabouts either. It's just a mess and creates a bad impression of Oxford for visitors!

I live in Bath where there are P & R's but there is need (and strong support) for at least one more. However the site(s) initially proposed were on lovely fields overlooked by expensive housing and there was much opposition - also the possibility of water-logging I suspect. I can quite understand why people would not want to lose their lovely outlook. Also the site was very close to the town so commuters would still be stuck in some congestion before reaching the parking - all a bit pointless really.
The long drive from the M4 into Bath ends on a very congested commuter route. Many of us wonder why there can't be a P & R further out towards the M4, there is plenty of space.

Yes boulding it is. I hadn't heard that rumour.
It seems to be as I suspected then.
Regardless of the financial wranglings it will interesting to see how two P&R car parks worth of cars is going to fit into one.

If one has always had the ease of personal transport and not had to really worry about the running costs, transport ticket prices, access to shops , price of necessities etc.but have only been concerned with maintaining a good financial portfolio and most of your chums, like you, are very good at big business why would you think to worry your head about the folk who do have to worry about such things??

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 ?.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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