By Em Brooks
The planned Beaumont Leys Park and Ride scheme which was scheduled to be completed for summer this year has been delayed indefinitely due to a lack of interest.
The £1.4 million site was planned for launching in Summer 2022 with an aim to bring more people to the Beaumont Leys area.
However, the pandemic saw a massive decline in users and numbers still have not recovered to their pre-lockdown statistics.
Andrew Gibbons, the Programme Manager for Buses at Leicester City Council, said: “The site is currently on hold pending a review of the business case for P&R post-Covid.
“The other three sites remain at 35 per cent of pre-covid use.”
Before these statistics were released, Deputy City Mayor Adam Clarke had described the site as “a great asset to the city.”
The original plan for the park and ride site was not revamping or changing the original bus service, just extending the routes to involve the site which would have worked the same as the other three sites currently in the Beaumont Leys area which offer free parking.
The site was planned to offer 300 spaces and proposed to see 30,000 passengers a year as well as 118,000 km of car travel saved per year through people using the site instead of driving to the shopping centre.
The Park and Ride scheme was a part of the city council’s climate emergency action plan which planned to reduce emissions through use of electric buses like those seen at St Margaret’s bus station as well as the completed plans to establish e-bike hiring stations around the city.
