£1.9m refit for park-and-ride on its way

Oxfordshire County Council is to spend £1.9m on a revamp of the Thornhill park-and -ride, near Headington, with work beginning on Monday, November 20, and lasting about a year.

Kingerlee, the firm which designed the Water Eaton park-and-ride site, near Kidlington, has been given the contract to build a new terminal.

The project will get rid of the temporary buildings currently at the site and create four large bus stops with enough space for the park-and-ride services to the city centre and Headington hospitals to operate alongside the London and airport coaches.

The county council, which made parking free at both its park-and-ride facilities a year ago, has also left enough room for new bus services if they are needed in the future.

Passengers, who currently have to wait outside, will have a heated waiting room, toilets, canopies for those waiting outside, and real-time displays.

The existing bus shelter is to be turned into covered cycle parking and customer care staff will work from an office above the waiting room, where they - as well as CCTV cameras - will be able to watch the car park.

David Roberts, the council's cabinet member for transport, said: "I am very excited about this project.

"Not only will we be providing excellent facilities for buses and passengers, the terminal building itself will be both high quality and eye catching.

"We are determined to continue to raise the quality of the park-and-ride experience and invest in facilities to encourage more motorists to leave their cars at the edge of the city and reduce congestion on Oxford's roads."

Oxford City Council, which runs the Pear Tree site in North Oxford, the Seacourt park-and-ride in Botley, and the Redbridge site off the Abingdon Road, has also been investing in its facilities.

A new waiting room, which includes toilets and an observation platform for security staff and will cost £400,000, is expected to be finished by the end of the year.