When I moved to Bath in 1985 the argument about a Park and Ride on the East of Bath was already several years old. We are now in 2015 and it will be debated again at Full Council next week. Our two Conservative MPs are at odds over it and the Conservative administration is in turmoil over it. Their recent consultation has been a sham with the party even soliciting favourable comments from its membership as their solutions were so unpopular.

The Conservative solution is to tarmac over the meadows. At least they are consistant in this. In May 2011 when I and my Liberal Democrat colleagues took over the Council one of our first acts was to cancel their previous attempt to tarmac the meadows – which at that time had funding in place and planning permission. Over the next 4 years we developed a rail based solution with a new station at Bathampton which would have solved the problem and also provided a start-end destination for the new Metro West service. Yes it would have cost a lot more but infrastructure pays back its costs over a long time and with growing rail passener numbers our scheme met many objectives.

They should scrap their meadows scheme and commit to a rail based solution and work with Government over getting the capital funding for it.