Dear Fellow Supporters of the GWSR,
I am pleased to say that the correspondence I have received, both here on the blog and by email, about the car park is overwhelmingly positive.
Several important points have been raised by a number of you, so here goes with a general reply;
1. The railway's right to vehicular access on the west side of the embankment just south of Broadway Station bridge will be retained and available to the GWSR at all times.
2. The car park will be for 99 cars (2 disabled spaces), the part nearest the station will be tarmac and the further part chippings, like Wychavon's Childswickham Road car park.
3. The council have budgetted £650,000 for the car park's construction and they plan to have it open in August 2018.
4. The contract with Wychavon will require that the use of the land by Wychavon may only be for car parking.
I trust the above covers certain legitimate concerns raised which, for clarity, I had left out of my original post.
Thanks for your comments.
Chris
Chris Bristow
thanks ,will there be spaces for coaches to park at the wider far end and as it's so narrow at station end , will exit be only onto Childswickham Road ? john M.
ReplyDeleteThe caveats are there. All (hopefully) contingencies have been covered, and we look forward to the car park becoming a reality. Regards, Paul.
ReplyDeleteWell, dare I say it, £650,000 just seems like one heck of a shed load of money, for exactly what?
ReplyDeleteI would contest that the budget is vastly, erm,over budget.
Such a sum of money could be better spent on something else.
I took a look at the area and I could not envisage 99 spaces!
Unless you use Dinky Toys. What an extravagant waste of public money!
£6,500 per space!
DeleteTalk about biting the hand that feeds! Wychavon should be heartily congratulated for this vote of confidence. The budget no doubt includes contingencies, its far better to be over than under and very very welcome !
DeleteRennie Dickins
In (rather belated) reply to the first comment, I don't think it'll be necessary to provide coach parking at Broadway.
ReplyDeleteCoach parties don't turn up at the railway at random. Everything is pre-booked. It's therefore easy to stipulate that coaches should only arrive at Toddington or CRC, where suitable parking exists. I assume this sort of condition is made already - I've never seen coaches try to use Winchcombe or Gotherington.
Even if no such condition is made, no coach tour operator with any sense is just going to roll up at a destination on spec, and assume there will be somewhere to park the bus. They work to planned itineraries, and facilities such as parking are checked out in advance.
Broadway already has coach parking in the village itself, as I'm sure coach operators are well aware. So it's not far away if it's needed.
On the face of it the cost of the car park does seem high, but then it's not going to be a case of simply slapping down a bit of tarmac. Creating splayed entrances will be an expensive part of the job, given that they'll need to meet Highways Standards. That's something the GWSR has never had to do, since we've always used existing access points.
We should thank our lucky stars we never had to create entrances to Toddington or Winchcome, and that Cheltenham Racecourse allows us to use their entrance for access to the station. If they ever withdrew permission, we'd have to create a vehicle entrance to suitable standards directly on to the A435. That could easily cost a million, assuming it would be permitted in the first place.
Aside from all that, I think we sometimes forget that as a volunteer-run organisation the GWSR is able to carry out fairly major work very cheaply - including jobs that require professional expertise which would otherwise come with hefty costs attached. Outside the voluntary sector, that sort of stuff gets very expensive, very quickly.
To add to that already extensive reply, I would point out that it is unlikely that Coach parties will arrive and remain for an extended circa 6 hour stay. I just don't see a 'Market' for such Excursions.
DeleteCoach parties, in the current format, I believe are part of a "Cotswold's Tour" where passengers are either dropped off at Cheltenham CRC and collected from Toddington, an hour or so later. Or vice versa.
Going back to the 'Broadway Excursion' scenario, Coach drivers aren't wanting to be 'on hand' to the whims and wishes of their 'Cargo'! "It's gone cold, can we get our coats?" Or, "It's gone warm, can we put our coats on our seats?" Similarly, "We have bought this and don't want to carry it around all day!"
The Coach driver with a circa 6 hour break in their schedule (with any sense) will be out from Broadway and off to a layby on the Evesham bypass.
A Pub meal at Strawberry Fields, or a Cafeteria meal at Morrisons, and then 'head down' until it is time to round up the 'cattle'.
Whilst it may sound harsh, that is how the Industry works.
Coach parking is just a non-issue.
The worst part of it was that the software only worked intermittently and the data was not accurate. You obviously canot confront anyone about what you have discovered if the information is not right Elia And Ponto
ReplyDelete