Wokingham park and ride's return on hold over funding shortfall

Reading Buses said it “lacks the means” to put the bus back on without more funding from the council

A park and ride bus service, halted while almost £2.8m was spent expanding its car park, is not set to resume due to a funding shortfall.

Winnersh Triangle park and ride, between Wokingham and Reading town centre, started in 2015.

It was suspended in 2021 while Wokingham Borough Council added a second deck to the car park.

Reading Buses said it "lacks the means" to run the service without more funding from the council.

The single deck buses ran every 15 minutes into Reading, taking about 15-20 minutes to get to the town from the park and ride site.

Councillor Paul Fishwick, executive member for active travel, transport and highways, said: "We completely appreciate Reading Buses' position that this service would need to be commercially viable for them to bring it back.

"Unfortunately, because of our own financial position, we can't afford to subsidise the significant gap between the cost of providing the service and the amount of revenue it is likely to make."

Plans to enlarge the car park began before the Coronavirus pandemic. It formed part of a £6.8m scheme which also included a new waiting area and paved pedestrian link between the railway station and the car park.

The new deck has added more than 100 parking spaces giving a total of 491.

Mr Fishwick added: "When it was planned and the funding identified, there was clear demand for the service.

"However, there's been a drastic decline in demand for park and rides since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic in early 2020, with more and more people working from home and little sign that this will change soon."

The ground floor of the car park is open for users of the Winnersh Triangle train station. But the new second deck remains closed.

The park and ride replaced the old Loddon Bridge park and ride, which was prone to flooding.