Winnersh Triangle park and ride bus service in doubt

Reading Buses said it "lacks the means" to bring it back.

A statement from the bus company said the route’s reinstatement was ultimately “a question of priorities for Wokingham Borough Council".

It comes after the council embarked on a £6.8million project to extend the Winnersh Triangle Park and Ride car park, during which the service was suspended.

Reading Buses—owned by Reading Council—suspended the service in November 2021 after finding that the construction work was severely limiting parking spaces there. The work was originally set to end in early 2022, but problems, including an unmarked watermain, meant it was delayed.

Now, in a statement to the Local Democracy Reporting Service, Reading Buses confirmed it won’t be back for the foreseeable future.

A Reading Buses spokesperson said the company thought it would “take a long time for demand to regrow once the carpark is reopened". They added demand for park and ride services nationally has not recovered at the rate of other services after the pandemic.

READ MORE: People in Reading unsurprised as park and ride buses cut

And they said reintroducing the service would need to be treated in a similar way to introducing a new one—with setup costs needing to be “underwritten as new travel habits are established.”

The spokesperson hinted the service could be reinstated in the future—but that this depended on funding from Wokingham Borough Council (WBC).

They said: “Whilst we have every confidence that the Winnersh Triangle park & ride facility will be very popular in the future, and that it forms a really important part of the region’s public transport strategy to reduce congestion and pollution from private car traffic, we are lacking a means of underwriting the running costs whilst we get to that point.

“We are happy to play a leading role as we have done in the past, and continue to help identify opportunities, but ultimately this is a question of priorities for Wokingham Borough Council as we cannot ask customers from our other bus services to subsidise this, especially when we are continuing to recover from the impact of the pandemic and the cost of living crisis.”

Liberal Democrat councillor Paul Fishwick, Wokingham Borough executive member for active travel, transport and highways, said: “We completely appreciate Reading Buses’ position that this service would need to be commercially viable for them to bring it back.

“Unfortunately, because of our own financial position, we can't afford to subsidise the significant gap between the cost of providing the service and the amount of revenue it is likely to make.”

READ MORE: Wokingham buses wont end in March thanks to extra funding

WBC previously funded an alternative park and ride, the 400, from Thames Valley Park, some four miles from Winnersh Triangle. But the service was scrapped in June 2022, with Reading Buses saying it wasn’t well used, and with the end of a funding deal from WBC.

Separately, WBC agreed earlier this year to extend financial support for other Reading Buses routes serving Wokingham town and nearby areas until August.

Users of Winnersh park and ride posted of their fears for the service on a Friends of Winnersh Triangle Park and Ride Facebook group.

One, Sandra Gresswell, said: “Winnersh park and ride was always well used. Since it shut, I haven’t been into Reading and I know a lot of others that are the same.”