A £51m Park and Ride in Eynsham: A Missed Opportunity
New photographs reveal a £51 million park and ride facility in Eynsham, Oxfordshire, that has remained unused for over two years since its completion. The 850-space car park, located off the A40, was finished in January 2024, with only minor landscaping work remaining. However, locals have reported that it has had to stay closed while the council seeks funding to build the necessary access roads.
The original plans for the facility included a new roundabout to make it easier to access from either direction. Despite the construction being complete, the site remains unoccupied, with the first buses and cars not expected to move in until 2027. Oxfordshire County Council confirmed that although the construction is complete, it won’t be operational until the start of next year.
A spokesperson said: “The Eynsham park and ride site will be a wonderful asset once it is in operation, giving people more travel choices on a very busy route between Oxford and Witney. Construction and landscaping are complete, but the site can’t start operating until the connection to the A40 is in place.”
Delays and Financial Challenges
The park and ride and connected A40 improvements were originally planned to be delivered together. However, in late 2022, cost pressures driven by high inflation affected the council’s ability to deliver the wider improvements programme within the available budget. To avoid further cost inflation, the council chose not to delay construction of the park and ride, which had a ring-fenced budget separate from the improvements programme.
Funding has now been secured from Homes England for the A40 Eynsham Park and Ride to Wolvercote scheme, which will connect the site to the A40, provide new bus lanes, and improve active travel infrastructure. The park and ride construction itself has cost £32 million. This has come from the £51 million allocated for the Science Transit (ST2) scheme that included the park and ride and the eastbound bus lane, and is funded from a variety of sources.
Community Reaction and Criticism
All major construction work at the park and ride, which will include cycle parking and electric vehicle charging points, was completed in January 2024. Oxfordshire County Council has previously estimated that the facility has the capacity to cut up to a third of the peak traffic travelling in each direction on the heavily congested A40 between Witney and Oxford.
The spot has even drawn criticism from TV presenter Jeremy Clarkson, who lives nearby over the Cotswolds border. Writing in The Sun, he said: “There’s no way anyone can access it, so it’s sitting there now, a gigantic blot on the landscape, and it cannot be used for parking or riding because neither a bus nor a car can get into it. So they have taken £51 million of your pounds. And wasted them.”
Future Plans and Expectations
The first phase of the separate A40 improvements scheme will provide the connection needed to enable the park and ride to be used by early 2027, subject to planning. The council has expressed confidence that once the access road is built, the facility will become a valuable addition to the local transport network.
The project highlights the challenges of large-scale infrastructure development, where delays and financial constraints can lead to underutilized assets. While the park and ride is expected to eventually serve its purpose, the current situation underscores the need for careful planning and coordination between different components of such projects.
As the community waits for the facility to become operational, the question remains: how long will it take before this £51 million investment starts delivering the benefits it was intended to provide?
