Site near Teversham favoured for relocated Newmarket Road Park & Ride site in Cambridge

Newmarket Road Park & Ride should be moved further along the A1303 to a site near Teversham because the existing location is too small and too close to Cambridge, according to the Greater Cambridge Partnership (GCP).

Interim director Peter Blake also stressed that the GCP is no longer just trying to provide park and ride sites catering purely for drivers, but wants to create “travel hubs” that link cycleways to bus services too.

The new park and ride is proposed to be built on land on the south east side of the roundabout where the A1303 and Airport Way meet.

Mr Blake said officers had looked again at the options at the request of GCP members, but concluded that this site near Teversham was still the preferred spot.

He highlighted that the current Newmarket Road site is not only too small, and too far into the city, but that the land is leased - which he said was “a bit like a Sword of Damocles” that needed to be addressed.

The site, known as P1 and lying immediately south of Newmarket Road, is also considered to be the easiest to walk from for fans going to Cambridge United on match days.

GCP officers propose a planning application to request permission to build the new park and ride site.

The joint assembly discussed the plans last Thursday (12 September), with Cllr Heather Williams, the Tory opposition leader on South Cambridgeshire District Council, expressing concerns.

She said: “I appreciate the reasons why [the preferred site] has been looked at, but it is geographically the closest and that feels very counterintuitive, because part of what we want to do is to stop people coming into the city.

“I know that with park and ride in particular a lot of people lose part of their day trying to get into it and I don’t know whether that half a mile to a mile is going to make a difference to its appeal. It is something that is concerning.”

Mr Blake said: “When we have discussed park and rides previously you have told me that actually we need to refocus the operation. It should not just be car to bus, because intuitively that now just feels wrong given the challenges we have got.

“We are not just looking at catering for people who are driving 20 miles into the edge of Cambridge. The whole concept of what you have asked us to do is to say we want to link up with cycleways,, we want good safe cycle storage, we want these things lit appropriately, we want greater hours of operation - rather than just [serving] commuters.

“Planned growth is significant on this corridor and so we need to manage that growth to reflect not just car-based travel, but also walking and cycling and other modes.

“The current location is too small, it’s too far into the city, it is increasingly a residential area and operationally there is a lease on it that is a bit like a ‘Sword of Damocles’ that we need to address.

“So the location is therefore a balance of all of those things. We do want to continue to cater for car to bus, but actually we want bus to bus, or cycle to bus, or bus to cycle, or car to cycle, and so the location then is determined by those parameters.

“Putting it 10 or 15 miles out of the city might be very nice to tick a car box, but it is certainly not going to address the others.”

City council representative Katie Thornburrow (Lab, Petersfield) supported promoting the wider use of the new site, saying she wants it to be the “best transport hub in the whole of Europe”.

She wanted it designed to encourage parents to use the site to drop off their children who attend school in the city.

County councillor Claire Daunton (Lib Dem, Fulbourn) called for the site to be accessible on foot and by bicycle for those in Teversham, which officers said would be passed on to the design team.

And she highlighted that the current park and ride was an “important facility” for people living in the neighbouring Marleigh development off Newmarket Road.

Cllr Daunton said: “When it moves that will bring concerns for the Marleigh residents. I would like reassurance that will be taken into account.”

Officers said the proposed site was a 10 to 15-minute walk away from the Marleigh development and noted that there would be other bus services operating along Newmarket Road into the city centre.

The GCP’s executive board will be asked later this month to agree for a planning application to be put together.