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May 9, 2026 — The A40 corridor west of Oxford has had a fully built park-and-ride for more than two years. It has not accepted a single vehicle. Oxfordshire County Council now says it cannot say how much keeping that building and its 850 parking spaces secure will cost by the time the doors finally open in summer 2028.
In response to a Freedom of Information request from the Oxford Mail, the council acknowledged that ongoing maintenance and security for the empty Eynsham Park and Ride are being handled under the original delivery contract. But when asked for a total cost through to opening, it replied that the figure has "not yet been determined."
The exchange reveals a notable hole in the public accounting of one of southern England's most scrutinized infrastructure projects. The A40 improvement program has already been scaled back, delayed, and repriced after an inflation shock in 2022. Now the council says the project as a whole is "currently within budget" even though one of its largest visible assets has a cost line it cannot yet quantify.
The Eynsham Park and Ride was physically completed in January 2024 as part of a wider effort to improve travel between West Oxfordshire and Oxford. It was designed to take cars off the congested A40 and feed them into bus services before they reach the city. But the facility cannot open because the new junction connecting it to the A40 has not been built.
Without that junction, the site is inaccessible from the main road. There is no route for vehicles to enter the lot, and no safe route to leave it. So the 850 spaces sit empty behind barriers while the corridor's traffic problems remain unsolved.
Local critics have nicknamed the site a "car park to nowhere." The name has stuck, because every month the lot remains closed, it produces a visible symbol of what happens when two pieces of publicly funded infrastructure are not delivered on the same schedule.
The Oxford Mail filed a Freedom of Information request to pin down the financial picture. The answers were only partially revealing.
The council confirmed that the empty car park is being maintained and secured, but said those tasks are covered by the initial delivery contract. It told the newspaper it is "not incurring any maintenance costs." That may be true from a cash-flow perspective, but it does not mean the work is free. The cost is buried inside a construction contract whose final total has not been disclosed.
The council was also asked whether delays related to planning permission, planning conditions, or other matters had increased the overall cost of the scheme. It declined to give a direct answer, saying only that project costs "remain under review" and that the scheme is "currently within budget."
Neither statement resolves the central contradiction. A program can be within its funding envelope while still carrying hidden costs, especially when a completed asset is left idle for several years. The phrase "currently within budget" is also a moving target: budgets can be rebaselined, contingencies can be reallocated, and "review" can end in new numbers.
The A40 improvements were originally designed as a single, integrated program. The car park, the junction, and the road upgrades were expected to be delivered together, using a mix of central government grants, local growth funding, and developer contributions.
That plan collided with the post-pandemic economy. The county council has previously said that "exceptional inflationary pressures in 2022" and rising construction costs forced a major reassessment. Rather than cancel the program, the authority scaled it back and split delivery into phases.
Part of that decision included finishing the Eynsham car park even though the road access could not be built at the same time. The council argued at the time that continuing with construction "saved taxpayers millions of pounds in additional inflationary and construction costs." The logic was that stopping work would have created a half-finished structure and forced a more expensive restart later.
The revised timetable is not exactly a triumph of speed:
That means the car park will have stood empty for about four and a half years before its first car drives in. The wider road works, once they start, are due to add new bus lanes, better crossings, and safer walking and cycling routes along a four-and-a-half-mile stretch.
A £70 million contract has been awarded to Balfour Beatty for the next phase. That is a sign of progress, but also a reminder that the original program was meant to be built as one effort. The phased approach is now the official strategy, not a temporary fix.
The Eynsham story is a useful reminder for American readers watching their own highway and transit projects. Many US infrastructure programs have gone through the same sequence: grant funding awarded, construction begun, then inflation and supply-chain shocks force redesigns. Some facilities are completed before the connecting infrastructure, leaving visible unused assets. Oxfordshire is not unique; it just happens to have a very visible example.
The deeper issue is accountability. When a city or county says a project is within budget, the public expects that to include all related costs. The FOI exchange shows that a key item — the cost of maintaining an empty car park for years — is not being counted as a separate line. It may be within the contract, but the public cannot see how much of the contract relates to security guards, utilities, and upkeep.
Taxpayers in Oxfordshire were told the A40 program would relieve congestion and improve road safety. They are now waiting longer, and the final bill is fuzzy. The same could happen in any state or county if inflation remains volatile and schedules slip.
For now, the Eynsham site has no transport function. No bus service can use it, no commuter can park there, and no congestion is being reduced. Every car that might have used the park-and-ride continues into Oxford and adds to the traffic the project was supposed to cut.
There is also a community cost. Large, empty public buildings have a way of eroding trust, especially when they are visible from a major road. The car park has become shorthand for mismanaged delivery, even if the council's reasoning about inflation was sound.
Council officers may argue that they are protecting the public purse by keeping the asset in the construction contract. What they have not explained is why the total cost remains undetermined so close to a scheduled 2028 opening.
The next meaningful date is spring 2027, when main construction on the A40 improvements is due to start between Eynsham and Wolvercote. If that begins on time, the park-and-ride could plausibly open in summer 2028.
Before then, residents and local media should push for a clearer cost breakdown. The council knows how much it is spending to secure the site each month, even if that cost is covered by a contractor. Turning that monthly figure into a cumulative number is not difficult; refusing to provide one is a choice.
The original question was simple. How much will an unused car park cost by the time it opens? The answer, according to Oxfordshire County Council, is still undetermined.
