Commuters in south west Birmingham are being urged to make use of the new multi-storey Park & Ride facility at Longbridge when it opens in Spring 2020.
With 629 spaces, the car park – adjacent to Longbridge Railway Station – will be one of the largest park and ride facilities in the city.
The development fits with the wider plan to encourage commuters on to public transport, avoiding traffic jams and charges related to Birmingham’s clean air zone which is set to be implemented in July.
Chargeable at £3 per day and accessible via Devon Way, the five deck car park will boast all modern facilities including; CCTV security, electric vehicle charging points, lifts and a range of fast and convenient ways to pay.
Costing £7.6 million, the car park has been developed by Transport for West Midlands (TfWM), part of the West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA), to meet soaring demand for park and ride in south Birmingham and give motorists an alternative to the busy A38 Bristol Road.
From the neighbouring station there are frequent train services to a range of popular destinations including Birmingham city centre, the Queen Elizabeth Hospital and University of Birmingham, Sutton Coldfield as well as connections with the national rail network at New Street Station.
TfWM managing director Laura Shoaf said: “Our existing park and ride facilities, which provide more than 8,800 spaces, have proved so popular that most are full to overflowing by 8am each morning.
“So we have built a multi-storey facility which means that commuters from the south of Birmingham can be sure they will be able to find a space no matter what time of day they travel.
“This car park, one of the largest of its kind in the region, is nearly completed, so I would urge commuters to consider using it as an alternative to the Bristol Road.”
The development has been backed with £1.8 million funding from the Greater Birmingham and Solihull Local Enterprise Partnership (GBSLEP) and Midlands Engine and the construction carried out by Bourne Parking.
There will be a fee of £3 per day to use the car park. Motorists will be able to drive straight in and pay later with a range of easy options available – including cash, contactless or credit/debit card at a ticket machine, via the Swift transport smart card or alternatively pay online.
The decision to build a five deck park and ride facility and fund it through charging was taken by the West Midlands Combined Authority Board in February 2018. The existing 106 space surface car park closed in February last year, with construction getting underway in May 2019.
If you want commuters to use it it should be a nominal fee ie £1 or you get the fee refunded / off set by your train fare. For £3 it would NOT make me use it As I will continue to park in nearby roads for free. Fares are high enough already and you need to give commuters an incentive to use it.£3 isn’t an inventive. That’s nearly £10 per day (£3 parking and £6 return) fare!! Think there are gonna be plenty of empty spaces!!
Will previous car park users be willing to pay £3 per day? – probably not.
Will South Brum residents pay £3? – definitely not.
Will new rail users use it as an alternative to their current car journey? – unlikely.
To acheive the aim of replacing car journeys with public transport its got to be free or near free (50p-ish).
Park for “free” in nearby roads? Not for much longer.
The fee to park is rather expensive, especially when the old surface car park was free for people using the train. The majority of people who will use this car park are commuters who travel into the city centre by train, so £18.00 a week on top of the cost of using the train is a considerable amount of money. I therefore agree with Mic that there is potentially going to be a lot of empty spaces and continued parking in local roads. Whoever set the £3.00 fee needs to think very carefully and drastically reduce this or better still, provide free parking again.
All valid points, I don’t see how a £3 per day fee which could easily turn into £18 per week if you commute to work and then want to go to city centre on the weekend can entice people to use this car par.
This could easily be £1,000 per year (£18 per week x 52 weeks = £936)
The only way to entice people is to do a park and ride properly by parking for free with a valid rail ticket, as was before.
An alternative, if GBSLEP really wanted to charge the masses it should charge 20pc for the 629 spaces and assuming it will be fully used it will get £45k per year and the £7.6m will be paid off in +/- 165 years
But as it stands I will continue to park elsewhere or just use the X20
No thought put into the pricing by those overpaid executives who don’t even reside in the area
There’s no mention of disabled parking, and whether this will also incur the £3 fee? This also seems steep for everyone especially if you have to pay the train fare as well. There should be some arrangement to allow a discount,at least for using the train. Doesn’t seem an attractive alternative for everyone . £15 a week to catch the train seems expensive. Another point I’d like to make is Longbridge Lane is already a traffic nightmare and now 625 more vehicles are possibly going to be added,
I agree to large extent with comments above, not sure what GBSLEP are thinking. £3 per day means this facility will be paid off in less than 15 years assuming it is full for 260 days of the year. Then it will be cash cow for the other suits making decisions there after.
If commuters wanted to pay, there is plenty of parking at Longbridge M&S as well as the town centre parking.
Parking at this facility should be FREE (as was previously) with valid rail ticket. That would have been a better way to incentivise commuters.
It was supposed to be free, like the other railway station car parks. What are they doing, if not exploiting the choice between a rock and a hard place by making it sound favourable when compared to the clean-air charge?
This is a joke right? At a time where people are being encouraged to use public transport and less cars to cut down harmful emissions to the environment you slap a £3 charge on the car park?! Utter disgrace! It was free previously and most other car parks on the line are free so why is longbridge being penalised?
The facility could help out local residents who may find that there is a chance that parking in the roads will be reduced however the fee, as Sarah and Mic Cooley point out, may nullify the benefits of constructing this rather ugly-looking building now gracing the skyline of Longbridge and people might still park in local streets to avoid the fee.
For me another worry is that this may encourage people from some distance away to come to Longbridge and use the trains into town which would be a good thing if the trains were not already so crowded at the times when commuters are travelling backwards and forwards to work. And of course people will still have to drive to the car park which will result in the traffic on Longbridge Lane becoming even more congested than it often is at present. If that happens no doubt the Labour Council will come along and set up a congestion zone in the area as it plans to do in the city centre and by doing so try to squeeze even more money out of south-west Birmingham commuters.
It’s all very well insisting people use public transport (as I always do) but if the public transport service is not good enough and the plans for forcing people to do so have been so rushed and badly thought out as the council’s current one has been then the residents of south-west Birmingham living around Longbridge station and travelling to town are in for an even more miserable time than at present.
Can only agree, overpriced for the regular commuter. £1.50 would be the max. I am prepared to pay on a daily basis. How about some form of discount or season ticket for the regular customer?
I agree with Mic. There was no previous charge and with the continued cost of railway increases (plus no salary increase) there be many empty spaces I feel.
They should seriously re consider this fee as if they can get the commuters to park in new car park then these would greatly ease the flow of traffic (no cars on side road creating hold ups or annoying the local residents). Also, bring people into the Longbridge town which in turn is a major benefits to retailers and Modwen
Has anyone ever seen this car park open? The lights are on 24/7 x 365 on the odd occasion I have been past I have never seen a car in it.
I drove past two days after it had opened at 13.00. There was a grand total of 5 cars parked there !! So I don’t think people are going to have a problem finding a space