A car park in Oxfordshire is causing a stir after being completed without one vital thing.
What’s missing are not parking spaces, security or pretty decorations. Crucially, it is a road to connect it to the nearby A40, which means that this £51 million Eynsham car park lies dormant and unused.
It has stirred an already fractious relationship between motorists and the council with the local authority being accused of introducing “totalitarian measures” against drivers.
Edmund King, president of the AA told the Telegraph: “It’s completely crazy.
“It’s even got electric charging bays, cycle parking, everything you need for integrated transport apart from the road to connect it. It beggars belief, what could they use it for? A film set, a skateboard park.
“Could they let learners in there learn how to park? These things need to be joined up. The problem is they’ve invested the money and now if they have to wait two years to get the road access, it still needs to be maintained or else it will become totally overgrown. It’s a waste of resources either way.”
The local council hit back, stating that the decision to build the car park without a road connection was a conscious one due to the cost of inflation had they waited to commence building work.
A spokesperson for Oxfordshire county council said: “The council decided to go ahead with the Eynsham park and ride scheme which was funded by a ring-fenced and non-indexed grant award and had obtained all the relevant consents and approvals to allow it to proceed to construction.
“Any delays to the park and ride construction would have caused inflationary pressures to impact its affordability.
“Going ahead with construction of the park and ride site has saved millions of pounds in inflation and construction costs.”
But the rationale has done little to persuade locals of its benefits.
At a time when public money is scarce, the decision to build a £51million car park that doesn’t allow cars to get to it is a tough thing to sell.
One local resident told the Telegraph: “It is a complete waste; you’d much rather they were spending that money on things that are actually needed at the moment.”
On the other hand, Zuhura Plummer, campaign director for Oxfordshire Liveable Streets, said: “I think it was perfectly reasonable they built it when they did with the money they had.
“They would have had quotes from before inflation started to go crazy, so you want to get it built when your quotes are going to be less. But obviously it’s frustrating that they didn’t finish the access road.”
It remains unclear when the car park will be connected to the nearby A40. Work is ongoing but bureaucratic procedures could mean that it is years before it is complete.
Oxford like many UK cities has seen a significant increase in traffic in and around the city centre in recent years.
It is one of 10 UK cities to have introduced a clean or zero emission zone in recent years to discourage the worst fuel-emitting cars from entering the city.