A BUS company says it lacks the means to reinstate the park-and-ride service from Winnersh Triangle to Reading, despite a £6.8 million project to revamp the car park.
Reading Buses says the route’s return was ultimately “a question of priorities for Wokingham Borough Council”.
The car park rebuild scheme was started by the then Conservative-run administration, but finished under the Liberal Democrat-run executive. This was despite the service being suspending due to the covid pandemic.
The revamped car park was meant to reopen last year, but hit problems including an unmarked watermain.
It is the second park and ride within the East Reading vicinity that is currently not being used for its intended purpose. The Thames Valley Park-based site, built on ancient scrubland next to the River Thames, is being used for a Royal Berkshire Hospital shuttle bus service and overflow parking for the nearby mosque.
A Reading Buses spokesperson said the company thought it would “take a long time for demand to regrow once the Winnersh Triangle carpark is reopened” – something that is a national issue.
They said reintroducing the service would need to be treated in a similar way to introducing a new one—with setup costs needing to be “underwritten as new travel habits are established” and any new provision would need funding from Wokingham Borough Council (WBC).
They said: “Whilst we have every confidence that the Winnersh Triangle park & ride facility will be very popular in the future, and that it forms a really important part of the region’s public transport strategy to reduce congestion and pollution from private car traffic, we are lacking a means of underwriting the running costs whilst we get to that point,” they said.
“We are happy to play a leading role, as we have done in the past, and continue to help identify opportunities, but ultimately this is a question of priorities for Wokingham Borough Council as we cannot ask customers from our other bus services to subsidise this, especially when we are continuing to recover from the impact of the pandemic and the cost-of-living crisis.”
The council agreed earlier this year to extend financial support for other Reading Buses routes serving Wokingham town and nearby areas until August, now the local elections are out of the way, it remains to be seen if this funding will be continued.
Users of Winnersh park and ride posted of their fears for the service on a Friends of Winnersh Triangle Park and Ride Facebook group.
One wrote: “Winnersh park and ride was always well used. Since it shut, I haven’t been into Reading, and I know a lot of others that are the same.”
The Local Democracy Reporting Service has contacted Wokingham Borough Council for a comment.
