Published on: Thursday, 27 February 2020
Last updated: Wednesday, 6 December 2023
Greater Anglia has completed work to extend Bury St Edmunds rail station car park from 23 spaces to over a hundred.
Thanks to the construction of a brand-new car parking area at the rear of the station, the car park can now accommodate 81 additional cars, as well as 17 at the front and five accessible bays.
The work commenced last August and has been supported by Jo Churchill MP, Suffolk County Council, West Suffolk Council and Network Rail.
Greater Anglia’s Asset Management Director, Simone Bailey, said “I’m delighted that the work is now complete, creating so much more space at this busy station.
“As more people make the switch from car to rail, attracted by its sustainability in terms of being a better choice environmentally, but also thanks to the introduction of our longer, more comfortable fleet of brand new trains, it’s important that we can meet this growing demand.”
Greater Anglia is waiting to hear if an ‘Access for All’ funding bid, to build a new accessible entrance on the north side of the station to link the newly built car park with the station concourse, will be successful.
The work is part of a £25 million investment in improving car parks across Greater Anglia’s network, including adding an extra 1,782 spaces, fitting LED lights, improving CCTV and security, and re-surfacing.
Twenty car parks have also had Automatic Number Plate Recognition installed to make paying for parking easier.
Bury St Edmunds station is on the Ipswich – Cambridge rail line - Greater Anglia’s busiest rural route, which last year saw a 5% increase in the number of passenger journeys being made on the line.
The station is used by more than 300,000 passengers a year.