Stratford upon Avon Blog

By  Anonymous | 30 December 2008 at 16:38  

I use the Park and Ride every day to get to and from work. Parking in car parks would cost me too much money. I really hope this service keeps running. When I catch it in the morning theres often no seats left!

By  Anonymous | 5 January 2009 at 12:24  

I also use the Park & Ride facilty daily - I have done so since it began and I happily paid for a three monthly "pass" - I was delighted when it was decided that prior to 9.00am it would be free as this saved me nearly £200.00 per annum. If I were to Park in town I would be looking at nothing less than £700 for a years parking in the town - a sum which I could ill afford to do - plus I would not be guaranteed a Parking place! At the Park & Ride - I can safely leave my car knowing that there is permanent staffing there to "look out" for my car, there is CCTV and all the staff and drivers whom I have contact with provide nothing short of 100% great customer care. I trust that the Park & Ride will REMAIN open.

By  Anonymous | 5 January 2009 at 14:49  

The Park and Ride is a far more sensible option than battling through the streets and town centre car parks to find a space, trying to deal with kamikaze pedestrians. Let someone else drive you through the streets of our lovely, yet overcrowded town! It is good value for money. The council employees should be given no option to use it. A lot of regular users, particularly the older generation bump into friends they haven't seen for ages and have just long enough to catch up on their family news/gossip, so there is almost a social side to the service. Perhaps the pedestrianisation of Stratford on certain days of the week would encourage people to use the facility. Another suggestion - the Maybird does not have enough parking spaces, is it not possible to provide a free shuttle service from Park and Ride to Maybird, or incorporate it into the existing service somehow? Whatever, the powers that be should be finding a way to maximise its potential rather than slating it at every opportunity. Time to think outside the box!!!

By  Anonymous | 6 January 2009 at 09:55  

To close the P&R would be crazy ... the town centre needs to be pedestrianised to make it more inviting to residents and tourists alike.
The ongoing spat between SDC & WCC over town centre car parks (and their promised (broken) closure by SDC) doesn't help ... nor the re-opening of the Station/Cattle Market car park at a cost for a FULL DAY of little more than 2 P&R tickets ... who allowed that to happen?

By  Anonymous | 8 January 2009 at 13:28  

I would love to use the park and ride for work however as it shuts so early this is not an option. I feel to really take advantage of this facility it would be worth keeping it open till 11pm and then having a bus stop outside the theatre. That way theatre workers and visitors could make use of it and it would be alot more useful to other companies too who have split shifts and late workers at the moment I don't feel it works for a large proportion of the town and having spent so much of our hard earned taxpayers money to build it I think the least the council can do is actually try to make it work for everyone.

By  Ben | 8 January 2009 at 15:46  

Press coverage on the campaign:

Stratford Observer - 8th Jan 2009
http://www.stratfordobserver.co.uk/news65714.html

BBC News article - 5th Jan 2009
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/coventry_warwickshire/7811651.stm

BBC radio interview on the Stratford Park and Ride - http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p001vrnm/Liz_Kershaw_05_01_2009/

You can hear my views at 1hr 20 mins into the show.