The York Council has missed yet another deadline for the “final” completion of the Park and Ride site at Poppleton.

The Park and Ride service was opened prematurely by the Council 3 weeks ago although essential signage, traffic signals, parking bays, landscaping and improvements to the A1237/A59 junction had not been completed.

Not surprisingly, despite the novelty of being able to ride on the City’s first electric buses, user numbers have been very low.

Most bus services are running empty.

By Saturday evening carriageway surfacing had been completed near the roundabout but lane restrictions remain in place as work to access footpaths and the cycle path has yet to be finished.

The Park and Ride site itself resembles the set of Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

It will present a poor backdrop for the TV pictures of the Tour de France riders who are scheduled to pass the site next Sunday morning.

TV coverage is scheduled to be beamed world wide and was one of the main reasons given by the Council for its £1.6 million investment in the event.

The Council has failed to provide any explanation for the latest delays nor for its decision to open the Park and Ride facility before work was completed.

The failure is the latest in a sting of misadventures which saw that Council forced to abandon plans to turn Monk Stray into a camping site and which has seen very low ticket sales for their highly expensive Grand Departee concert being held at Huntington Stadium on Thursday.

They have, however, now added the popular local band HUGE to the concert programme no doubt ensuring that the Council’s propaganda machine will be able to refer to a huge attendance at the event!