Park and ride - 'the solution'

Phil Johnson wants businesses to lobby for strategic' park and ride facilities because Warrington Borough Council cannot fund them on its own.

"This is something we have got to solve now," said Mr Johnson. "We can't build our way out of congestion."

Mr Johnson, WBC's head of transport, was addressing business leaders at the Birchwood Forum.

He told them: "Your efforts in lobbying in the city regions will be very important.

"We need some pressure from Warrington on the region to deal with these big transport policy issues which are really outside the remit of Warrington.

"We have been trying. We have been hammering on doors. It would be sensible to look for funding from whichever authorities could benefit from the facilities."

Liverpool and Manchester both have travel executives that are building large park and rides in their own areas.

But both of these said they would not comment on co-operation with Warrington because the area was outside their remit when asked by the Guardian.

However, they did say they would discuss such an idea if the Northwest Development Agency was involved.

A spokesman for the agency said it supported the regional strategy for park and rides - but did not give any indication whether it would financially support a park and ride for Warrington.

Warrington will get an estimated £24m for transport over the next five years, compared with the £26m it received for the previous five.

The town applied for funding for park and ride schemes from the Government but was not successful.

There were bids for £4 billion-worth of transport schemes in the north west but only £1 billion was available.

Birchwood is Warrington's extreme example of a need for a park and ride - more people travel into it to work than actually travel out, many from Liverpool or Manchester.

Thirty per cent of those who work in Birchwood travel more than 20 miles to get there.

Great efforts have been made to turn this around - passenger numbers on the Birchwood shuttle bus have increased by 429 per cent since 2001.

But they are not cutting car-use enough.

Park and ride is viewed by experts as a better alternative to road building - which often only makes tiny differences to journey times.

Dualling Birchwood Way would only shave three minutes off a journey to Birchwood Park.

Phillippa Sudlow, from the Birchwood Forum, said park and ride was a possible solution for the long term.

She said: "It is fair to say that installing park and ride is a costly business and if suitable sites were identified - assuming the idea was given the go ahead - the funding would have to come from a number of sources."

Peter Crompton, chairman of the Birchwood Forum, suggested the northern side of junction 11 of the M62 as a potential location for a strategic park and ride site.

The problem of congestion and the attraction of park and ride are growing because car use and congestion do not increase at the same rate.

A small increase in car use creates a lot of extra congestion.

Mr Johnson said: "We have to get vehicles off the network because congestion is becoming one of the biggest problems in the local community."

He wants good quality high-speed links to Liverpool and Manchester, possibly with a dedicated motorway lane.

He said the benefits of park and ride would be the same for businesses and local authorities - reduced costs.