CHELMSFORD has one and wants more. Ipswich has three and Cambridge has five.

Park and rides are seen as a way of attracting more shoppers and commuters to a town, while reducing traffic and congestion.

Now, after years of sites falling by the wayside through opposition or lack of funding, a park and ride could be on its way to Colchester.

Essex County Council is to submit a planning application by next spring, for 1,000 spaces at Cuckoo Farm, on the A12.

The millions of pounds of funding needed to build it has not yet been secured, but Anne Turrell, leader of Colchester Borough Council and a Mile End councillor, believes it will happen.

She said: “As everybody who lives in the area knows, North Station is a bottleneck. I would like to see hundreds of fewer journeys to North Station.

“Cuckoo Farm would also alleviate problems on Clingoe Hill, because cars from the Clacton direction can also use the park and ride as it’s not much further away.”

In 2006, Essex’s first park and ride opened at Sandon, off the A12, to serve Chelmsford.

Neil Gulliver, councillor responsible for planning and building at Chelmsford Council, says it has been a resounding success.

He said: “We were overwhelmingly surprised. It has cut the amount of traffic in the town and has proved successful with residents. We reckon we have taken about 800 car journeys out of the town centre every day.

“We’re just waiting for planning permission for a third extension to it.”

Mr Gulliver said he expects to see three more park and rides coming to Chelmsford in the coming years.

He said: “We’re starting work on our second one, which we hope to have open by Christmas 2010. It’s on Essex Regiment Way, so would serve traffic coming from the A120 and A130.

“If that’s half as popular as the first one, then it’s going to be a major success.

“I think, within the next few years, we will have four or five major park and ride sites, just because of public demand.

“If the public wants them, we will keep providing them.”

Mr Gulliver said one downside to the scheme was the reduction in revenue at town centre car parks since Sandon opened.

Mrs Turrell believes Colchester could sustain two further park and rides, in addition to the one proposed at Cuckoo Farm.

A study will look into whether one can be built east of Colchester, serving commuters and shoppers visiting from the coast, while another, in Stanway, near the A12, has long been seen as a possibility.

Mrs Turrell said: “Ideally, we would have one on the west and one on the east, but let’s worry about that after we get the first one.”

But park and ride is not universally popular.

Peter Kay, secretary of the Colchester bus users’ group, C Bus, believes they can draw people away from buses and trains.

A survey last year by Essex County Council found, while 82 per cent of people using Sandon’s park and ride would have previously driven into the town, 12 per cent would have gone by bus and 6 per cent would have taken a train.

He said: “It is now claimed park and ride is part of sustainable transport. It’s no such thing.

“There is the environmental question and then there is the public transport question.

“The best that can be said of park and ride is it can, in a short time, get rid of traffic in the inner town area.”

Mr Kay said he was opposed to a park and ride in east Colchester, because he believes the local rail service would suffer.

As for Cuckoo Farm, Mr Kay said: “It’s difficult to judge where people come from. It’s a question of how many people from Manningtree and Tendring will use Cuckoo Farm.”