Coming to the city at the weekend? Then you might want to get the bus...

Victorious Festival goers are being encouraged to use public transport to help cut congestion over the bank holiday weekend.

Around 120,000 people are expected at this year’s festival on Southsea seafront over the weekend and additional bank holiday visitors, Portsmouth is bracing itself for a busy few days.

The city council is advising visitors to plan their journey and use public transport, the park-and-ride service, ride a bike or walk to the festival site in order to avoid potential delays stuck in traffic.

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Visitors travelling to the Victorious are being encouraged to use a special park-and-ride service from Lakeside North Harbour Car Park.

The service will operate from 9am to 1am each day and costs £6 per vehicle.

It will stop at Clarence Pier, five minutes from the festival entrance and be one of the quickest and easiest ways of reaching the festival.

There will also be a shuttle bus service to encourage festival goers use the Hayling Ferry, details of which have yet to be confirmed.

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Residents are also encouraged to leave their cars at home and walk, ride or use public transport to travel round the city over this weekend.

Cllr Jim Fleming, the council’s cabinet member for traffic and transportation, said: ‘We’re looking forward to a great bank holiday weekend and I hope everyone can support that by travelling sustainably and keeping the number of cars on the roads to a minimum.

‘Our traffic team has various ways to manage traffic flow but the biggest help is to reduce the number of cars coming into the city.

‘Hopefully visitors to the city going to Victorious will take advantage of the dedicated park and ride, while I would encourage residents attending the festival to walk, cycle or use public transport wherever possible.’

The council’s advice is:

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n Follow twitter feeds @portsmouthtoday and @portsmouthroads for live traffic updates.

n If you do have to drive allow extra time for journeys.

n Parking will be suspended in certain areas of the seafront. Visitors coming into the city should try and use park-and-ride where possible

n Southsea Castle, D-Day Museum, Southsea Skatepark are within the Victorious Festival site and will only be accessible to ticket holders on Saturday and Sunday

n Southsea splashpool and beach volleyball courts are within the festival site and will be closed during the construction of the event from Friday, reopening on Tuesday after the site breakdown is complete

n The festival has a dedicated, safe and secure, bike facility for the high number of people anticipated to cycle to the event