this post was submitted on 04 Sep 2024
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Council’s £51m car park can’t be used … because there’s no road in (www.thetimes.com)
submitted 2 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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A car park built for £51 million in Oxfordshire is lying empty because a council cannot connect it to the main road.

Planning problems are preventing motorists from using the 19-acre park and ride scheme in Eynsham until funding is secured to link it to the A40.

Aerial photographs show the 850-space site devoid of vehicles, despite its finished glossy tarmac, bus stops and green spaces. All major construction work was finished in January, followed by landscaping last month.

Although the car park could be cut off from the main road until 2027, local authorities have contracts to maintain it every week, cutting the grass and topsoiling and seeding when necessary.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

What a collosal bureaucratic fuck-up.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

No! I was born here! Made my own car thanks!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

Answers to "how did you get in there in that car?"

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago

Spooky, I drove past this the other day and mentioned it to my wife after watching this video a while back.

https://youtu.be/dISbY0YsLQM?si=B0_SST8YQhQ-sk5w

[–] [email protected] 27 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Wow, why does something like that cost £51 million? I thought, it would be massive, but it just isn't...

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

Seriously. Unless it includes the cost of like multiple ten+ year maintenance contracts I think they overpaid.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago

Probably spent that buying the land off some councillor's uncle.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

It must be connected to a road somewhere, or else how did they build it in the first place?

https://maps.app.goo.gl/qrw1wBFBnwcBnWgv9?g_st=ac

It's connected to a smaller local road, but not the main motorway. I guess they don't want too much traffic on the local road?

[–] [email protected] 30 points 2 months ago

Although the car park could be cut off from the main road until 2027, local authorities have contracts to maintain it every week, cutting the grass and topsoiling and seeding when necessary.

I imagine the guy whose job it is to maintain the lawn on an inaccessible parking lot as a character in a satirical book or movie a la Catch 22.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (4 children)

Would it have hurt them to plant some trees here and there? That photo is depressing.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago

The image quality isn't amazing but if you zoom in you can see there are trees planted, they're just small so don't show up well.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 months ago

Dont worry. There is a contract in place for groundskeeping.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago

I applaud the sentiment, but it's a park-and-ride car park served by buses. While it would be great if infrastructure was such that it was affordable and practical to exclusively use public transport, this was specifically built to stop people from driving into the city, reducing car traffic in the urban centre and improving air quality and general QOL for pedestrians.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 months ago

I can see quite a few trees if I zoom in on the image, they’re just young saplings at the moment as it’s all new and just been landscaped.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

Looooooooooooooool

[–] [email protected] 18 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Sounds farcical but I'd like to know who is benefitting from those contracts. 🤔

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago

Probably whoever managed to get the contract 10 years ago, knowing full well the effort to change contractors is too massive to ever happen.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago

It sounds like British beuraucreacy at work, the contract to build the overpass etc is a different contract to the one to build the car park.