Land Locked

Like many small towns in the South East of England ours is blighted by shear volume of passing vehicles, the number of days per week that the entire town centre is gridlocked by through traffic at some point must be approaching 100% There have been many attempts over the years to build remedies to this, signals, one-way systems and the like, but the obvious solution (a bypass) never seems to reach the top of the heap. Back in 2018 the town council embarked on an ambitious re-modelling of key parts of the town centre and there was also talk back then of a bypass and a new park and ride to go along with the pedestrianisation of large swaths of the centre, optimism was high.

Fast forward to today and the town centre has indeed been re-modelled to a large extent, two new squares, parks, a new sports centre and swimming pool, new shops, a cinema and nice new restaurants and bars, all good. But the gridlock continues, hundreds of people get a splendid look at all the new buildings as they crawl through the town in their cars at 2 mph, but the bypass has become mired down in planning disputes with nimby land owners in the surrounding vicinity and shows no signs of progressing beyond a few dead-end extensions that go nowhere.

One rather strange thing did get built though. A park and ride facility on the edge of town was completed about 2 years ago, replete with 14 electric vehicle charging points, lighting, bus shelters and ample marked parking bays for around 250 cars. I occasionally walk past it on my lunch time strolls and took the above snap the other day. In two years I have never seen a single car in there, it seems to be a baffling waste of money.

I did read something on the Council web site the other day about new funding for this "underused" facility from central Government and an ominous warning that the car park needs to be used or it will be closed. I can't see anything changing, clearly no one wants to park there, the town simply isn't a big enough of a draw for the degree of hassle involved in parking and bussing it in. Whoever thought this was a good idea needs to have a serious talking to, there must have been several millions wasted on this and anyone who lives here could have predicted the outcome quite easily. So, we still have a gridlocked town, no hint of a bypass and a seeming white-elephant of a park and ride system, it's a shame and smacks of poor planning, ah well, we live in hope, maybe next year?