READER'S OPINION: It's time to create out-of-town parking for all our commuters

Isn’t the council aware that they already exist, free to use and kept up-to-date giving knowledge and timely information?

Waze is one of the most popular used by most taxi drivers, but I am sure there are other similar apps available – we don’t need a public-funded one.

What is more, they will not resolve the problem of too many cars and too few roads, they will simply encourage drivers to use other less suitable residential roads, causing even more chaos and increasing the risk of accidents.

Portsmouth City Council has a poor record dealing with this problem and some examples of this are:

o Creating 24/7 bus lanes which have very few or no buses for large parts of the day. Even London’s bus lanes only operate at peak times and their buses run 24/7.

o Allowing the Gunwharf development to create a car park for 1,500 cars, all of which have to drive right through the city.

o What city builds a park-and-ride facility in a residential area where people should live? Every park-and-ride system I have used is positioned well out of town and stays open until late.

Portsmouth’s park and ride only operates until 8pm – the last bus leaving The Hard at 7.15pm.

Doesn’t the council realise that Gunwharf shops don’t close until 8pm and the cinema, restaurants and bars shut even later?

So Gunwharf workers and patrons make little or no use of the facility.

If you drive down the Eastern Road in the morning, you will see that every possible parking slot is taken by motorists car-sharing to reduce congestion.

If the council wants to do something positive to reduce congestion, take a lead from these motorists and create out-of-town parking for commuters, at Junction 3 on the A3(M) and Junction 11 on the M27.

A park-and-ride scheme at these locations would help enormously, but it must operate until at least 11pm.

Selling the existing park-and-ride site for housing would cover much of the cost of this development.

The only way to resolve congestion is by reducing the number of cars, not giving them a ‘rat-run’ app.

*This letter was submitted to The News by John K Chadwick of Ferndale, Waterlooville