Park and Ride ticket price consultation
Changes to service charges reflect changing pattern of visitors to Essex city centres.
Essex County Council (ECC) is looking to change the price of some tickets on the Park and Ride services to encourage more users and reduce the number of cars in the centres of Colchester and Chelmsford.
A consultation, opened today (Friday 28 October), will give residents and users of the Park and Ride service the opportunity to comment on the changes being proposed.
All these views will be taken into consideration before a decision is taken.
Cllr Lee Scott, Essex County Council Cabinet Member for Highways Maintenance and Sustainable Transport, said: “Covid-19 has changed the times people are using the Park and Ride services.
“Commuters are not using the three Park and Ride sites, two in Chelmsford at Sandon and Chelmer Valley and one in Colchester, in the numbers they were pre-pandemic.
“However, road usage is equalling pre-Covid volumes, and people are traveling at different times of the day.
“This increased car usage is resulting in increased congestion and higher pollution in our city centres. These price changes seek to encourage people to use the Park and Ride at all hours of the day, a move which we hope will bring down emissions.”
The changes being proposed are good news for commuters as ECC is looking to reduce both the daily price for peak time services and weekday afternoon tickets on the service.
The cost of weekend day visits to Chelmsford and Colchester city centres will now be in line with weekday prices at all three Park and Ride sites, and the proposed changes still offer commuters and visitors a cheaper service than city centre car parks.
The proposed changes to Park and Ride charges are:
The following will affect Chelmsford sites only:
- Reduce the weekday adult ticket from £3.60 to £3.00.
- Increase the Saturday adult ticket from £1.50 to £3.00 (this will make it the same as Monday to Friday).
- Increase the current Saturday group ticket from £3.50 to £5.00 (this will make it the same as Monday to Friday). A group can be composed of up to two adults and three children.
The following is proposed for all three sites (Chelmer Valley, Sandon and Colchester):
- Introduce a new lower adult ticket at all sites travelling between 12.00 - 15.30pm at £2.50
Unchanged tickets are:
- English National Concessionary Travel Scheme (ENCTS, older person) £1.50
- Child ticket (age 5 - 18) £1.00
- Group ticket (up to 2 adults and 3 children) Monday to Friday £5.00
- ENCTS (disabled person) travel for free
- Child under 5 travel for free
Complete the park and ride consultation online.
Once the consultation period closes on Friday 9 December the responses will be studied, before the Essex County Council Cabinet decides on the changes.
The Park and Ride consultation is being widely advertised in the media and social media and posters advertising the consultation have been placed at all three Park and Ride sites in Essex.