Hopes rise for park-and-ride site unused for two years

A NEW park-and-ride interchange which has sat unused since it was built for a Yorkshire council more than two years ago could finally be brought into service, it has emerged.

The site was constructed adjacent to the car park at a Tesco store in Barnsley when the business was extended, as part of a planning agreement requested by Barnsley Council.

Even at that stage traffic forecasts for the congested Wombwell Lane location had raised questions over the viability of the scheme and when tests were conducted after the completion of the work, it was confirmed traffic in the area was too slow moving to allow all bus operators to include stopping at the park-and-ride facility on their journeys without disrupting timetables too badly.

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However, Barnsley Council has now announced a new traffic study and other work which it hopes will find new ways of improving traffic movements in the area.

The work is at an early stage, but a spokeswoman for the authority said: “The evidence base which the study will provide will allow the council to make bids for funding for improvements when opportunities arise.”

According to the council, the principal difficulty for the park and ride is traffic flow on Wombwell Lane, immediately adjacent to the site in Stairfoot, but the rest of the route into Barnsley town centre is also known to have “pinch points” which slow down vehicles.

South Yorkshire Passenger Transport Executive, the body responsible for public transport in the county, has now completed work which should help improve bus journey times on that part of the route.

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Key elements of that work involve changes to the large Stairfoot roundabout and another on the edge of the town centre to reduce delays for buses.

That should help towards making it viable to include the Stairfoot park-and-ride by reducing overall travelling times. One of the objections to using the facility was that if buses stopped there it would immediately soak up all the “spare” time included in timetables to allow for delays.

Barnsley Council’s transport spokesman, Coun Roby Miller, said: “We are encouraged by the initial data SYPTE officers have reported – this shows the scheme is having positive benefits predicted for bus journey time.

“Barnsley Council collects this data on an annual basis and I am sure given the initial 12 month bedding-in period these interim results will be confirmed by all road users.

“This means that the improvements will assist the park-and-ride site by reducing access and egress times especially at peak periods.”