Letter: A Chapter of Errors Doomed the Onslow Park & Ride

Published on: 10 Aug, 2024
Updated on: 10 Aug, 2024

From Julian Lyon

In response to: Onslow Park & Ride Bus Service to Close Due to Low Usage

Oh dear. A manufactured mess of a local legacy. This has been a chapter of errors:

poor signage (which then also competes with the University P&R at weekends);
a convoluted access which we all questioned at the time it was built;
a pay to ride system instead of pay to park – two people in a car going into Guildford for up to three hours might just as well park in the town centre and save money (£4 for the town centre versus £6 for the P&R);
a drive to instead of drive through strategy (in Winchester the P&R buses are free to ride if you have a car park ticket and drop off and pick up at various places through the city centre);
a failure to embrace the nearby Royal Surrey Hosptal’s needs – this could have run for longer hours and could have gone past the hospital on the way to and from the town;
a failure to operate for long enough hours to embrace at least part of the evening economy and to be available to and effective for commuters;
there could have been (revenue-generating) amenities for people waiting for a bus or on their way back to their cars and there could have been a shopping pick-up point baked into the P&R site;
oh, and as for being well advertised, whilst Merrow and Arrington are advertised on the Parkopedia website, there is no such pin on the map for the Onslow P&R.

Of course, that is all irrelevant now the site is to close.

What might be a good approach now that this site seems to have gasped its last breath is for it to be a temporary shuttle car park for the hospital (in line with Jim Allen’s comment) whilst allowing the existing hospital car park to be redeveloped as a multi-level car park for the hospital, redesigned and enlarged to improve the experience of hospital visitors.

In closing the P&R there should also be a suitable connection installed to solve the Beechcroft Drive access which has been dangerous and problematic for years.

By the way, I do not see this as a failure of P&R per se, it is a systemic failure of design, implementation and management which I hope will become a thing of the past in the new GBC CEO Pedro Wrobel era.

Responses to Letter: A Chapter of Errors Doomed the Onslow Park & Ride

Brian Creese Reply

August 31, 2024 at 12:13 pm

I agree totally with Julian Lyon above, but I do think there is a wider agenda.

Both GBC and SCC have Climate Emergency policies and also commitments to improve air quality. The Park & Ride schemes could have a major and positive impact on both these policies. However, a successful Park & Ride policy would lead to less car parking which would affect GBC’s income substantially and less street parking, which would impact SCC’s income.

Both councils need car parking income to bridge the huge gaps in their funding. This is not the fault of either council, but of the dreadful funding they have received over the past 14 years.

So while running a successful Park & Ride service would help them achieve their climate crisis and air pollution aims, it would also drive them into an even deeper funding crises. I do wonder if this is why the schemes receive such luke-warm support.

Brian Creese is a Guildford Labour activist