The park was completed in January 2024. (Tom Wren via SWNS)
By Tom Bevan
Pictures show a $64 million park and ride built by a council which remains unused - more than two years after it was completed.
The 850 space parking lot in Eynsham, Oxfordshire, off the A40 was finished in January 2024 apart from a bit of landscaping.
But locals say it has had to remain shut for Oxfordshire County Council to find money to build the road in and out.
Plans for the facility on the A40 included a new roundabout to make it easy to access from either direction.
And images taken this week show the site remains unoccupied - with the first buses and cars not expected to move in until 2027.
Oxfordshire County Council confirmed although the construction is complete it won't be in operation 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 is complete, but the site can’t start operating until the connection to the A40 is in place.
"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 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 program within the available budget.
(Tom Wren via SWNS)
To avoid further cost inflation, the council said it chose not to delay construction of the park and ride, which had a ring-fenced budget separate from the improvements program.
It said funding had 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 council park and ride construction itself has cost $40M. This has come from the $64M 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.
All major construction work at the park and ride, which will include bike parking and electric vehicle charging points, was then completed in January 2024.
Oxfordshire County Council has previously estimated the facility has the capacity to cut up to a third of the peak traffic traveling in each direction on the heavily congested A40 between Witney and Oxford.