§ Mr. SymsTo ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions what progress has been made in the last 12 months with introducing park-and-ride schemes in towns. [3459]
§ Ms KeebleLast December as part of the Local Transport Capital settlement for 2001–02 we gave full or provisional approval to a number of major local transport schemes, including the Allerton Interchange in Merseyside, Somerset's North West Taunton Package, Plymouth's Northern Corridor improvement, South Bradford's and Salisbury's integrated transport packages, each of which contains park-and-ride as an element of the proposals.
Authorities have also included a wide range of smaller-scale measures in their local transport plans (LTPs), including park-and-ride schemes. The exact choice of measures will be for authorities to determine, but the capital settlement should enable authorities to start work on as many as 120 new and extended park-and-ride facilities over the five-year LTP period. We will be monitoring closely the implementation of LTPs—including park-and-ride schemes—through an annual progress report system. The first reports are due to be submitted at the end of August 2001.