Onslow Park & Ride Bus Service to Close Due to Low Usage

Published on: 7 Aug, 2024
Updated on: 7 Aug, 2024

The welcome sign to the short-lived Onslow Park & Ride in 2013.

By Martin Giles

The Onslow Park and Ride bus service in Guildford will be closed on Saturday, August 31, due to a significant drop in passengers over the past four years, Surrey County Council announced yesterday.

According to SCC, just 18,000 passengers now use the service each year, compared to over 84,000 at the Artington Park and Ride and more than 87,000 at the Merrow Park and Ride, both of which will remain open.

Cllr Matt Furniss

Matt Furniss, Cabinet member at SCC for Highways, Transport and Economic Growth, said: “Despite our best efforts to promote this service, offer free parking and competitive fares, patronage remains disappointingly low and there is no sign that this will change.

“We have a responsibility to spend taxpayers’ money responsibly and numbers are just too low to justify continuing with the service. This has been a very tough decision as we fully understand this will impact those that do currently use the service.

“We are fully committed to continuing to invest in bus travel to meet demand. This includes expanding our popular on-demand Surrey Connect bus service across the whole of the county from September this year offering discounted travel for young people, £2 flat fares and concessionary bus passes for over ’65s.”

The Onslow Park & Ride was constructed by Surrey County Council in 2013 using government funding.

Former Cllr Bob McShee

In 2018 then councillor Bob McShee (Worplesdon, Ind) wrote in a letter to The Dragon that he had warned the Park & Ride would not be financially viable due to its disadvantaged location.

See: The Onslow Park & Ride Has Been Labelled a ‘White Elephant’

In 2014 The Dragon reported its observations in an opinion piece, Onslow Park & Ride Is In A Trafficless Jam, pointing out the low usage and including a comment from, at the time, Lib Dem County Cllr for West Guildford Fiona White, who spoke as a member of the public at the GBC Planning Committee when it approved the plan, saying: “I am in favour of the principle of park and ride sites around Guildford to reduce the number of vehicles going into the town centre. What I am not in favour of is the access via the Egerton Road system.”

Onslow Park & Ride plan as approved by Guildford Borough Council in 2012. Access from the adjacent A3 was only possible via a circuitous route via Egerton Road adding to journey times.

Cllr Fiona White, now GBC’s lead councillor for Planning.

Her comment echoed the views of many residents at an earlier public meeting in 2012. They warned that the plan, referred to the then Lib Dem Transport Minister, Norman Baker (in the coalition Conservative/Lib Dem Government) was flawed because of the lack of a direct entrance from the A3.

See: Onslow and Park Barn Residents Criticise Proposed Park & Ride

It was observed over the years that the car park was being used by those who were not travelling into the town on the bus thereby avoiding charges.

Questions are now likely to be raised about the future use of the site.

For information on alternative bus services and the Surrey Connect service see: www.surreycc.gov.uk.

See more archived articles on Onslow Park & Ride here.

Responses to Onslow Park & Ride Bus Service to Close Due to Low Usage

Ramsey Nagaty Reply

August 7, 2024 at 11:26 am

Ideal site for hospital parking with solar panels above.

Or should it not be used for new student accommodation as that was the purpose for which the site was originally taken out of the Green Belt. This would relieve pressure on town houses increasingly being taken as HMOs for students.

Ramsey Nagety is chair of the Guildford Greenbelt Group
Jim Allen Reply

August 7, 2024 at 7:05 pm

Will this now be used as a hospital staff car park? With 15 seater hopper bus?

Unlike on the Starship Enterprise, just saying “Modal shift” does not “make it so”. Too often grand ideas are proposed by those who have no comprehension of the human psyche. The fact is the extra 15 to 20 minute journey times both ends of the day, driving into traffic to escape traffic was irrational from the outset.

Let’s have some rational common sense ideas not “dead from the start” projects with multiple £1000s bills which turn to from a dream to nightmare in minutes, not years.
Sara Tokunaga Reply

August 8, 2024 at 6:22 am

This car park has never been fully utilised. As was pointed out in 2018 the majority of people parking there worked in the immediate area and appreciated the free parking it offered as no ticket machines were installed. The bus service passes the end of my road and I have never seen more than a handful of people using it, even at peak times. Usually it is completely empty. Why has it taken the councils over 10 years to realise this is a financially non-viable white elephant?
Jonathan Neil-Smith Reply

August 8, 2024 at 9:01 am

A small, but significant, point: Cllr Furniss is quoted as saying that concessionary bus passes are available from the age of 65. If he’d checked the facts, he’d realise that they are only available from the age of 66. (In London anyone over 60 benefits from this scheme!)