No revival for city’s Park and Ride

A BID to revive Ely’s Park & Ride service for the busy Christmas period has been abandoned, it was announced this week.

The City of Ely Perspective, a community group set up in 1998 to help drive improvements in the city, announced earlier this month that it was hoping to find enough funding to keep the service going until Christmas.

The ambitious plans have had to be scrapped this week however, after the group revealed that a lack of funding and information about the service had made the task impossible.

City councillor and Perspective member, Phillip Eden, said: “Funds are so tight at the moment and we couldn’t get the information we needed from the district council so we couldn’t take the plan forward.

“It would have been nice to see it run up until Christmas, when it would have been at it’s most busy.”

The decision to scrap the service was made by councillors late last month amid claims

that the cost of running the service could no longer be justified in light of the council’s shrinking budget.

The bus took visitors from the car park at Ely Community College into Market Street, at the heart of the city.

According to a report presented to councillors, the park and ride service was used by an average of 450 passengers every Saturday, with both journeys taken into consideration.

The cost of running the bus was �15,506 per year, with an extra �3,700 needed to hire the parking area from Ely College.