(16 Oct 2025, 5:49 pm)MurdnunoC wrote I've said this before, but, instead of all the humming and harring about building a P&R site at Eighton Lodge, Follingsby Park offers a better solution, in my opinion. 

Irrespective of whether the Leamside Line or the Wearside Loop are ever constructed in full, a relatively short spur from Pelaw utilising either heavy or light rail (heavy rail would be probably easier and cheaper as it's still sort of connected to the network although heavily mothballed) could easily service the site with shuttles into Newcastle. 

The space is there and it's easily accessible from the south via the A194(M), and could also be useful for Washington and the A182 corridor. If the road between Nissan and Follingsby is ever upgraded, it could also service traffic coming from the A19 too. 

None of the above is really achievable with the Eighton Lodge site. Any railway station near Lamesley or Team Valley would be still be quite a distance away from where the P&R site is earmarked to be, and even if the buses manage to navigate a traffic-free route along Durham Road, through Gateshead, and across the Tyne, it's still probably a 20 minute journey.

Honestly I totally agree, to be honest, always thought it was the best site aswell and like you said wouldn't cost a billion pound to build either. 

It's really easy to get to from the A1 aswell, avoiding all the traffic and would be a good terminus point but I don't want to make many suggestions as I know there's serious capacity issues in central station but that said even buses from there would be neglible to Eighton Banks and could be utilised for the 56X and other Washington services people are talking about.  

Eighton Banks will be as successful as the Great Park imo and we all know how that went... 

Mind talking about the Metro, I always think it should be 2 phases with the first priority of getting it to Concord which is pretty piss easy as there's one one level crossing which could easily be barriers, at Follingsby itself. 

The Concord to Sunderland bit can come later (or never because it wouldn't be the end of the world). It's better to have something that nothing imo.