New £1m car park only used by three cars in one week

Residents have criticised the project as a ‘waste of taxpayer money’

A 112-space railway car park that cost £1m to build was only used by three vehicles in its opening week.

The facility finally opened outside the village station in Manea, near Ely in Cambridgeshire, on 7 August, following several delays.

However, aerial photographs showed just one car parked at the lot within the first three days of opening.

A further two vehicles used the parking lot over the next four days.

The car park was built by Fenland District Council at a cost of £986,000, out of £9.5m allocated by the Cambridge and Peterborough combined authority to improved Fenland’s railway stations.

Residents have criticised the project as a “waste of taxpayers’ money”, as local councillors suggested the underwhelming response could be linked to an increase in people working from home.

However, one person told The Telegraph “half of the village” could walk to the station and leave their cars at home, if they were getting a train.

The car park was built in the small village as part of a £9.5m scheme by former Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority Mayor James Palmer to improve Fenland rail stations (Cambs News/Bav Media)

Another said the station isn’t busy enough to justify the need for such a large parking lot, explaining: “There is no evening train service in or out of Manea so the station is never that busy and I just can’t see the need. It’s a complete waste of money.”

There are a limited number of trains that operate from the station in the evenings, including two trains to Cambridge after 7pm with changes at Ely. There’s also one train to Manea from Cambridge post 7pm.

Manea is located around 20 miles from Cambridge and has a population of 2,500.

But residents have blasted the council for wasting taxpayers money, claiming it will not be used by many cars as there is no evening train service and it is out of the village (Cambs News/Bav Media)

Councillor Charlie Marks defended the project that “has been 20 years in the making”, noting that “the agreement and buying of land and stuff all happened before Covid”.

“Since then there have been a lot of people working from home. But now we are getting more people using the station again,” he said.

Mr Marks also noted that the signage for the car park hasn’t been completed and that, since it had opened in the summer with a soft launch, it was possible residents weren’t aware the facility could be used.

Aerial photos show just one car parked in the new 112-space car park at Manea station, north of the city of Ely, three days after it opened. (Cambs News/Bav Media)

Plans for the car park were approved in September 2020, and construction began the following year.

At the time, Cambridgeshire and Peterborough’s former mayor James Palmer said the car park will help reduce road travel and encourage train use instead.

Councillor Chris Seaton, the council’s Cabinet Member for Transport and Chairman of the Fenland Stations Regeneration Project Board, said he was “delighted” plans for the car park had been approved.

The car park was originally supposed to open last April, but delays over the installation of CCTV cameras pushed the opening back by a year-and-a-half.

Announcing that the railway parking lot would finally open on 7 August, Mr Marks said: “This car park has been almost 20 years in the planning and building and has been held up on numerous occasions due to unforeseen issues, but finally Manea will have free, well-lit CCTV monitored, off street parking for rail users using our station.”