Salisbury needs more parking at the railway station

SO where do you park if you want to catch a train from Salisbury after 7am?
On weekdays, my husband tells me, the station car park is full at an hour when I’m still in the Land of Nod.
In the days when his work required frequent rail trips to London, he took to cycling across Town Path from Harnham.
It may be commendably green but it’s not very comfortable when you’re wearing a business suit, lugging a laptop and briefcase, it’s still dark and it’s pouring with rain.
And it’s not an option open to those who live outside the city.
Quite a few use the long-stay spaces in the Central Car Park, but these will disappear under the current redevelopment plans.
According to Alistair Cunningham, Wiltshire Council’s head of economic development, “It has long been the policy that we don’t want car parks in the centre of Salisbury to be filled up with people going to London.”
He has a point. It shouldn’t be up to the council to do the rail industry’s job for it.
However, the policy is only any good if the city’s needs are being met in some other way. Until railway parking is sorted out, people will have to leave their cars somewhere.
The inclusion of a bus interchange in the regeneration scheme as a result of the recent public consultation is welcome, and with luck it will have an impact on the problem.
But I’ve long wondered why owners South West Trains don’t boost the capacity of the station car park. Can’t the council give them a shunt in the right direction?
In my opinion a well-designed extra storey needn’t be any more of an eyesore than the concrete wasteland that’s there already, and there’s no doubt that it would be well used.
Does the fragmented ownership of our rail system these days perhaps discourage investment in such essential infrastructure?
Or maybe the answer is that commuter trains are already so jam-packed they don’t really want any more passengers, thank you very much.
What will happen when all the new estates are built at Fugglestone Red, Wilton, Bishopdown and Old Sarum, attracting thousands more families to the area? There’ll be even more demand then.
Shouldn’t we be planning ahead (and building ahead) for that day?