Council figures released to campaigners under a Freedom of Information request have revealed that £3.3million of public money has already been spent on the controversial east of Bath Park & Ride.
A further £0.5million has been approved, even though there’s still no announcement on a site and its future is looking ‘increasingly uncertain’.
The figures, which were finally released to campaigners following the general election, show that almost a third of that £3m, £888k, has been used on outside consultants.
B&NES’ Conservative cabinet this January also agreed a further £500k, which takes the total allocated to the controversial project to £3.8mn since 2010.
£1.2m of that was spent under the previous Liberal Democrat administration, with the bulk going on the purchase of Bathampton Farmhouse, which was bought in 2014 for £971,577.
That decision was agreed by the then Liberal Democrat leader of the council and the current leader, Tim Warren.
However, the remaining £2m has been spent by the current Conservative leadership of the council, which has made the east of Bath Park & Ride a flagship of its transport policy since its election in May 2015.
Since then, the project has been constantly delayed by the huge wave of opposition it’s encountered from across the city, with campaigners questioning the £17.5m it will cost to build, when the council’s own consultants have acknowledged it won’t take more than 100 cars off the road during the morning rush hour, or make any significant difference to air pollution.
The Conservative cabinet agreed in January that the Park & Ride would go ahead on one of two sites on the Meadows – Site B on New Leaf Farm, and if that failed, then Site F which is owned by the council.
However, it was subsequently revealed, again through a Freedom of Information request by campaigners, that Highways England believe the proposed access to Site B from the Batheaston bypass is too dangerous to allow.
The council has since refused to be drawn on whether it’s now going to go ahead with trying to get planning permission for the other site, Site F, prompting campaigners to question whether the Conservative-led local authority may be preparing to quietly shelve the troubled project.
The former cabinet member with responsibility for transport, Anthony Clarke, said last week in a BBC Radio Bristol interview that a decision would not now be taken until the West of England regional transport policy is agreed, which would mean July next year at the earliest.
Chairman of Bathampton parish council, Moira Brennan, said that delaying the decision for another year would be disastrous for the villages and the city. “Will we see another year of uncertainty, of more money being spent on a project which everyone who’s seen the evidence says should never have been started and certainly shouldn’t go ahead?”
“We are delighted the council is now looking at non car-based alternatives to ease Bath’s chronic traffic and pollution problems.”
“We believe it is time for council leaders to stand up and say, enough is enough: let’s shelve this Park & Ride proposal and work together to come up with effective, workable solutions that will make a real difference to this city and the people who live in it.
“We’d be very happy to work with them to try to achieve this.”
Liberal Democrat councillor and former mayor Andrew Furse first put in a request last autumn for an annual breakdown of what had been spent on the eastern Park & Ride project since 2008.
When the council failed to release those figures, a Freedom of Information request was lodged in May by Bathampton Meadows Alliance campaigners.