….. chaos in Winchester tomorrow. The new Park and Ride car park opens at 07:00 tomorrow. I made a prediction in May of last year that it will become a white elephant. We’ll have to wait a bit to see if that comes true but tomorrow will present a different set of problems. The reason for chaos tomorrow (and for the next 3 months) is the closure of Andover Road for 3 months whilst bridge rebuilding takes place.

For those who don’t know Winchester there are three roads into the City from the west, north west and the north, Andover Road is the northern route into the City. Traffic which normally uses Andover Road is being ‘shunted’ across to the road from the north west, Stockbridge Road, which is already overloaded and has delays at peak times. I think it will go without saying that regular Stockbridge Road users will then ‘shunt’ themselvesacross to the road from the west, Romsey Road. And it’s Romsey Road which would be the Achilles heel of the new Park and Ride service without the increased traffic it will see for the next three months. Romsey Road is used by the Stagecoach local number 5 service which runs the length of Romsey Road every 10 minutes in both directions. It’s not uncommon for the number 5 buses to bunch up during peak times, 3 or 4 within a few hundred yards of road space. Add even more traffic to Romsey Road and all the P+R buses could end up in virtually the same place at the same time.

Unavoidable but it could end up as terrible PR. I say this because I’m sure the Council big wigs will be out there to see their super new P+R service commence together with invited media. Heaven knows why they didn’t open it 1 week earlier, before the schools go back tomorrow. During the holidays everything has been running smoothly and the launch would have looked like a success – for a week at least!

I’ll report back on the accuracy of this prediction tomorrow.