Buses or face competition

a wider scheme to expand and improve city centre access for bus users.

“It was suggested that route 25 could be extended to serve the proposed development. It is already carrying large numbers of people to and from the hospital at certain times of the day, so there won’t necessarily be capacity available to carry additional passengers to and from Mountfield Park.”

Stagecoach puts the yearly cost of running a bus at an “indicative figure” of £130,000 and says the addition of services has to be weighed against their “revenue opportunities”.

Cllr Steve Williams, whose Barton ward incorporates most of the area of the proposed development, says the Mountfield Park development will have serious implications across the city’s entire transport network.

The Conservative said: “No matter your mode of transport, Canterbury is going to be approaching full capacity in the coming years with the significant increase in population. The roads are pretty awful for five hours a day during the week, the bus station has had a lack of free space at times and the West train station is not fit for the huge numbers of commuters that descend on it every day.

“That is why the proposed development at Mountfield Park, along with several other developments in the city, will produce a strain that our transport infrastructure will struggle to deal with.

“Having additional bus lanes is great, but the problem is when they arrive at the city centre the bus station is at full capacity during peak demand and will only be compounded when the new houses are built and additional bus routes and park-and-ride services are hoped to be introduced.

“More people using bikes would be excellent, but presently there is little about the cycle lines that attracts new users to make the journey to the centre and back.”