SPT News
SPT announces three more Park and Ride schemes for 2010/11.
More Park and Rides brought forward thanks to savings
March 8, 2010 11:09 UKNewsSPT's plan to develop Park and Ride sites across the west of Scotland has been so successful that additional sites will now be brought forward.
At its recent partnership meeting SPT members heard that schemes announced at the beginning of this financial year have made excellent progress, and that savings made through partnership working with local councils have allowed three additional schemes to be accelerated.
There are now plans to bring forward three rail Park and Rides - with a new 100 space facility worth £550,000 at Hamilton West; a new 100-150 space facility worth £550,000 at Bellshill; and the addition of 83 spaces at the existing Coatbridge Sunnyside station car park.
Additional funding of £5m for Park and Rides was allocated to SPT by Finance Secretary John Swinney last year as part of the acceleration of capital spending for major infrastructure projects.
The extra cash will be used by SPT, working in partnership with councils outside the city of Glasgow, to help reduce traffic on busy commuter routes and promote more use of public transport services.
Improvements at nine key sites will deliver almost 2,000 extra parking spaces by the end of next year. The works at Dalreoch and Kilbowie have already been completed and the works at Carluke are nearing completion. A further extension will now be undertaken at Dalreoch building on the success of the works that were opened by Scotland's Transport Minister in September 2009.
Site works are now well under way at Patterton with works set to commence shortly at Croy, Stewarton and Harthill. Development and design work is continuing at Monkton and Dumbarton.
SPT Projects Director, Charles Hoskins, said: "Before committing the capital spend, we had to be satisfied that the locations identified would help build the transport network in years to come and we're confident these projects will do that.
"Work on the strategic park and ride sites selected has made excellent progress and has been all about partnership with our local authority partners, who are fully committed. We now look forward to seeing works progress on the three newly-added sites, as well as completion of our original schemes."
