Agenda item

Paul Thackray will tell the meeting about the proposed park and ride site at Wigginton Road.

Damon Copperthwaite, Asst Dir City Development and Transport, said that three new Park & Ride sites have been proposed in York:

• A59 / Poppleton Park
• Wigginton Road
• Askham Bar.

The Wigginton Road Park & Ride site is at an early stage of development and the team is looking for ideas and views about it. They were originally looking at four separate sites around the roundabout at the Ring Road but this will be refined to one preferred site, hopefully by Spring so that they can begin to develop detailed proposals.

Park & Ride has been a successful innovation for transport in the City. The main problems on Wigginton Road are commuter traffic coming from thr North and traffic going to the hospital, so the Park & Ride site is planned to intercept this. The plan is for a 500 space car park with attendant facilities, very similar to the site at Monks Cross with bus priorities on Wigginton Road.

The entire project (all three sites) will cost £26m which will come principally from the Government. These funds have not yet been secured, but the team will be submitting the bid in the coming months. Once the funding has been secured they will submit the planning application, then develop more detailed designs and invite tenders from contractors. It is expected that it will be ready for use in late 2011. They would like to return to the Ward Committee meetings as the project develops.

Q. (Cllr Watt) Is there a risk that you won’t get the funding?

A. The risk is quite low. The scheme would be endorsed by the Government Office Yorkshire and Humber and is then approved by the Government, subject to stringent tests that it will provide the service they claim. There is no reason to doubt that they will get the funding.

Q. What is the preferred site?

At the moment there are four potential sites. The team are weighing the benefits and drawbacks of each site and will eventually present them to the council. They will use a questionnaire and further public consultation to help with this.

Q. Will access to the site be from the roundabout? This is a concern because the roundabout is so busy. 

A. One of the potential sites could be at the roundabout, but if this were to be the case the roundabout would need modification.

Q. The success of Park & Ride is dependent on the speed of public transport – what will happen about the traffic on Gillygate?

A. The route is not intended to go down Gillygate, but there may be problems with the traffic lights at Clifton Moorgate and Crichton Avenue. They will have to work on ways of resolving this, for example, by implementing bus priorities like on Malton Road.

Q. Will the bus finish at 8pm? If it runs later it could serve people going out in York.

A. In the past they have tried to run Park & Ride services in the evening but the numbers have been too small to justify it.

Q. Will the buses coincide with hospital visiting times which are from 3-8pm?

A. (Cllr. Watt) There will be flexibility to meet hospital visiting times.

Q. What about the impact on traffic at Clifton Moor?

A. Park & Ride works because it serves a purpose at either end, in this case, the City Centre and Clifton Moor. It will be an opportunity to improve the bus service at Clifton Moor.

Cllr. Watt commented that Kettlestring Lane is not well served by buses at the moment, which makes the traffic worse.

Cllr. Moore informed the meeting that, as he is a member of the Planning Committee which will consider the Park & Ride application, comments and queries should be directed to Cllr. Watt and Cllr. Waudby.