This car park cost nearly £1 million in 2023 to build, but there were only six cars using it when I parked up

For a car park that cost nearly £1 million in public money, I was surprised to see it so empty. This was exactly what I found when I parked up at the Manea Station public car park.

In 2023, the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority set aside around £985,000 for this car park. The funding formed part of the Railway Stations Masterplans scheme, set out by Fenland District Council.

It’s not a new car park anymore, but you would hope that three years on that people would be jumping at the chance to use this free car park. Well, when I arrived on a Monday at around midday, it was deserted.

I parked up and counted seven cars parked, including mine. There are over 100 spaces in this car park, so the fact that less than 10 percent of spaces were being used was not a hopeful sign.

When I was there, I was the only one still with their car, so I presume the people parked up were commuters. It added to the deserted feeling of this car park, and felt as if these cars had been left behind.

It also made it feel quite lonely, with the car park also being in the middle of nowhere. It was a very clean car park, with clear markings for spaces and no rubbish left around.

However, if it’s this number of cars that park in it on a daily basis, no wonder it’s in such a pristine condition. While I was there, there were also no other cars parked up.

There was one driver that entered, giving me hope that maybe an eighth would park up. However, the driver used the car park to turn around and head back in the other direction.

Manea railway station is a stop on the train that heads towards Cambridge. So, for anyone who lives in Manea wanting easy access to a job in a big city such as Cambridge, this car park would be perfect.

However, I wasn’t confident that many people in the village were using this as a commuter station. Manea doesn’t have much to offer in the way of shops, so it made sense why there weren’t so many people using the car park.

With all this taken into account, it feels like nearly £1 million spent on this clean, but very quiet car park could have been put to better use. One example that came to my mind when travelling to the car park was the roads between Chatteris and Manea.

The roads were full of cracks, dips and potholes that I had to swerve each time. If £1 million is being spent on an empty car park, why hasn’t it been spent on these damaged roads?

It’s a shame this car park isn’t used as much, as it’s in a great condition and offers a lot of spaces to those who commute. If people aren’t choosing to park here when it’s free, why was so much public money spent on it?