A LONG-AWAITED report into the feasibility of a park-and-ride scheme for Barnsley Hospital has revealed it could land council tax payers with a £140,000-a-year bill.
The authority confirmed the study would look at the feasibility of a scheme to help ease congestion and improve air quality around the Gawber Road site.
A meeting was subsequently held to discuss the would-be facility previously suggested for land near Dodworth’s Capitol Park after almost 300 people signed a petition in favour of its creation.
The council accepted a recommendation from its in-house scrutiny group to carry out a feasibility study for the project, which had been spearheaded by ex-councillor Peter Fielding due to poor air quality in Gawber and Pogmoor.
However the study, published earlier this week, states that the majority of staff live close to the hospital meaning the project may not be feasible.
It added: “Baseline surveys have shown that the majority of staff live in the immediate vicinity of the hospital with 2,375 64.4 per cent living within five miles.
“The cost of the service depends on various factors, such as route length, number of buses required or congestion on the network.
“Estimated operating costs for each of the sites identified were calculated based on distance operated.
“These costs varied from £100,000 to £225,000 up to £427,000 annually.
“Taking a mid-size site as an example, the viability assessment has shown that there would likely be an annual deficit of over £140,000.
“This does not consider the capital costs of constructing the new park-and-ride site.
“At a most optimistic estimate of £3m for a new facility, it would need around 540 trips a day to break even.
“To give a comparison on number of trips bus services that are already running past the hospital vary from 485 to 1,266 passengers a day so a park and ride would be in direct competition with a bus operator.”
Coun Will Fielding will continue to campaign for the scheme to be implemented and is disappointed with the report.
“We finally have the long-awaited park and ride feasibility study, a long delay since it was recommended to cabinet way back in 2022.
“It was recommended from the point of view of air quality, and the council’s climate emergency though strangely nothing about air quality, the climate, or the nearby children on Summer Lane suffering from the fumes are even mentioned.
“Other strange aspects of the report come from inconsistencies.
“The report insists the council must buy new land and facilities, costing up to £10m but doesn’t remotely account for the land the council already has and bought in the form of Oakwell.
“Councillors also can’t provide any scrutiny to the report, because the supposed plots of land investigated are withheld.”
Coun Fielding added that a number of the bus services the report uses either no longer exist or are only used in evenings and weekends.
“It’s disappointing the council has misled the public into thinking that they are taking these proposals seriously when they have clearly commissioned a study to provide a specific outcome.
“It is obvious that they have no intention of taking this project forward but the Lib Dems in Barnsley will continue to push for the scheme to be implemented to help alleviate the congestion and parking issues around the hospital.”
The report will be discussed by councillors on Tuesday, who will decide on the next steps.
