Shropshire Council’s closure of the busy park and ride at Meole Brace is an ill-thought out decision that will damage the economy of Shrewsbury and the county. The site will shut next November, just before Christmas and New Year. This has been announced without the council sharing data, analysis or reasoning, except that it doesn’t have enough money. As we are seeing too often with the new administration at Shropshire Council, its financial emergency is being used to justify decisions that have not been properly thought through.
The council hasn’t published data on long term usage of the three park and ride sites in Shrewsbury. It has given passenger figures for 2025 but has only said numbers are below pre-Covid levels and use of Meole Brace is declining. We don’t know the scale of that decline. Is it 20%, 10% or 1%?
In any event it is obvious why use of Meole Brace has been declining. When Bellway built the Darwin’s Edge housing estate (Darwin would be on edge if he saw his name used in this way), the signage to the park and ride site was removed. After more than two years, Shropshire Council has failed to put the signs back. Who would think of turning into a housing estate to access a park and ride site without clear signage?
Rob Wilson suggested at a public meeting in Bayston Hill that lack of signs was not the issue as signage at Harlescott was just as bad. That is not the case. There is a clearly marked P&R lane on the A4112 Battlefield Road.
With Meole Brace handling an estimated 400 cars on a weekday, where will they go if Meole Brace is closed? They can’t go to Oxon because it does not have the capacity. Oxon could be expanded but that would require money the council doesn’t have, unless of course it sells the Meole Brace site.
Oxon will need all the spaces it can get to transfer NHS passengers to the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital after the dedicated Meole Brace service to the hospital closes. Motorists could drive Harlescott, a six mile drive along congested roads. Rob Wilson claimed this would only take six minutes. That’s clearly impossible, especially at rush hour. He misses the reality that drivers are not altruistic. They are drawn to park and ride sites because of their convenience. Rob Wilson told the Bayston Hill meeting: “Shrewsbury is a wonderful place, I hope you still keep going, but if you don’t want to go there, that’s your choice. Telford is also a lovely place.” That led to gasps and protest from the audience, who rightly expected a member of the council cabinet to promote the county town.
The council has denied that the closure decision has been influenced by the potential future use of the site. But it’s prime retail estate and the sale of the site will help the council repay its nearly £200m loan facility from the government. In the council’s current financial emergency a sale is inevitable. A park and ride site on the south side of Shrewsbury will be lost forever to the detriment of those that live in the south of the county and to the detriment to Shrewsbury’s economy. Telford will be laughing all the way to the cash tills.
Councillor Bernie Bentick (Lib Dem, Meole Brace) told a council meeting the recent increase in frequency and the hours of the park and ride services (now every 12 minutes and running to 10pm) hasn’t shown any material improvement in passenger numbers.
What cost savings could be made by reducing the frequency of buses at the park and rides and reducing the hours they are open? Do they all need a service to 10pm? Rob Wilson has suggested that this would improve late day footfall in Shrewsbury town centre. Increasing evening footfall is a matter for Shrewsbury Town Council and Shrewsbury BID, not Shropshire Council. If they want late buses they should fund them, though I doubt park and ride would be part of the service.
Buses in our county are chronically underfunded. Shropshire Council’s leader, Heather Kidd, and Rob Wilson have written to the prime minister pleading for more funding for buses. Unfortunately, the letter wasn’t written in the language of the new government. It lacks an Andy Burham punch and a unique selling pitch for Shropshire. Shropshire Council is always feeling it is the victim, not the pioneer when it comes to buses. It needs an attitude change and a bold new vision for buses. In a letter published in the Times, I call for a Sheep Network for Shropshire, a rural equivalent of Manchester’s Bee Network (the name is somewhat tongue in cheek).
There is still time to rethink the closure. The park and ride bus contract runs until November. The decision to close Meole Brace should be subject to a rapid scrutiny process to examine whether the decision delivers the best value in the council’s constrained circumstances. That will give councillors and council taxpayers confidence that the best decisions are being made. At the moment many councillors and Shropshire residents don’t have that confidence.
Notes
Shropshire Council has provided passenger numbers for 2025 for each park and ride site but not hard data on parking. Assuming half numbers on Saturday, 286 operating days a year and 1.2 passengers per car (the national average for park and ride sites), that gives the estimates below. These estimates are likely to be on the low side as they do not take account of match days at Croud Meadow, holiday shopping and festivals. But they give a ball park figure.
