On the subject of park and ride, my comments in Wednesday’s article do not explain our true position.

The fact is we are in favour of the approved scheme for park and ride for Tendring, ie having an improved rail service into Colchester, with people driving to their nearest station to catch the train.

This scheme is included in the current County Council Local Transport Plan, approved by Government.

It would benefit everybody because the improved train service would be available to all.

If local authorities had the same interest in action as they do in waffling, and if Tendring Council had the slightest interest in the train service, this could have been in place by now.

Every other rail route in East Anglia has already seen improved services and usage in recent years; only the Clacton/Walton line continues to suffer from apathy, abnormally high fares, and Sixties service.

Colchester Council is now out to undermine this agreed “rail park and ride”

scheme with its own idea for a bus-based park and ride near the university.

This has been so badly thought-out that the council suffered the indignity of having the independent inspector strike it out from its core strategy plan last year – but it is still continuing to push it.

This scheme would badly affect Wivenhoe bus services, which are used to an above average extent by people who have cars.

All park and rides of this sort have council-subsidised charges to “encourage use”, whereas “real”

bus services operating in the same corridor have to operate on a fully commercial basis on weekdays.

Result – anyone who has a car available to get them to the park and ride would immediately decamp from the real buses to the artificially- cheap service.

It would further undermine rail, by offering a public subsidy to encourage 1,000-plus people a day to drive ten miles -plus from Clacton/Frinton/Walton to the site, instead of the nearest station.

It would produce a net increase in car mileage (because an unusually high percentage of users would be people who had previously used public transport all the way).

As far as the council is concerned, using public money to undermine public transport is part of its “sustainable transport” strategy!

Peter Kay
Sec C-BUS
Park Road
Wivenhoe