CAMPAIGN VICTORY: 3 Years Later, Southampton Labour's Disastrous Portswood Bus Gate Is Gone!

 

Councillor Eamonn Keogh SACKED From the Cabinet

 

 ... just two months after the Cabinet Member for Transport Captain Road-Chaos Councillor Eamonn Keogh had been sacked from the Cabinet, amid comments that he was proud of his record, with Keogh saying he was:

"very proud of the improvements that the transforming cities grant has brought to the city".

In a letter published in the Daily Echo in February 205, campaigner and former Southampton Independents Councillor Andrew Pope called for Keogh to be sacked from the Cabinet by the former Labour Leader of the Council Lorna Fielker. She refused to. She lacked the authority, it seemed.

Former Council Leader Councillor Lorna Fielker

Keogh was allowed to go ahead with the scheme by Fielker, despite the huge outcry against it. So the call for his removal was necessary. 

Shortly after Pope's call in February 2025 for the sacking of Keogh, suddenly and shockingly, the previously weak Conservative Council opposition developed a backbone and called for Keogh to resign. This did not happen, either. 

It took another failed Labour Leader of the Council to go (Fielker), before it was finally confirmed by the Daily Echo this week that the Portswood Bus Gate "would not return". Previously, the Council had only announced that the "trial" had been "suspended". Keogh had tried to cling onto his Cabinet role, amid the suspension.

This is a victory for local residents, for Southampton Independents and for Andrew Pope, who joined residents and businesses in the campaign against the Portswood scheme in 2022 and encouraged people to sign the petition against the proposals in 2023.

Fresh from his twelve-year campaign victory getting a Park and Ride for Southampton, and seven-year win on safe standing at St Mary's Stadium, Andrew says:

 

Andrew Pope victorious in the Safe Standing campaign
Park and Ride and now the Portswood Bus Gate

 

"I always said that this Portswood Broadway was a stupid idea that should never have been done. 

Eamonn Keogh claimed to have listened to residents and businesses. He did not and carried on regardless. 

We had to work together to make him listen. He simply had to go if he did not.

Working with residents, and having contacted the residents groups, I spent my own time, campaign know-how and money on printing letters as a volunteer campaigner and carefully listening to Portswood residents and businesses.

The Daily Echo reported on my work, and the work of other campaigners. Thanks to all of them, we've won!

I put out a lot of letters and spent a lot of time on people's doorsteps as a volunteer in our City. Why?

Because the vast majority of local people did not want this. The consequences of the scheme were clear, yet Southampton Labour councillors went ahead with it anyway. 

It should not have taken THREE YEARS to stop this. Labour should never have done it in the first place.

Now there are lots of other stupid transport ideas that Eamonn Keogh carried out in our City, that Labour have to undo if they are to keep their Council seats at next year's local elections. Road chaos has to stop. 

Labour is already very unpopular in the national Government. The Prime Minister Keir Starmer is spending more and more time on foreign policy, which is what failing leaders have done throughout history. 

What matters is delivery for Southampton residents, and Labour have failed us - nationally in Government and locally in the Council.

Now, even Labour's own councillors are leaving the sinking Southampton Labour ship and running away to other Westminster parties. 

Do any of the current Southampton City councillors have the talent or conscience to be Independent councillors who represent Southampton residents instead of their failing Labour Party? We will see. Southampton people need proper independent representation for each ward of our City.

Like I said when I left Labour over ten years ago, it's time for Labour to be removed from power at Southampton City Council, because they lack the vision and leadership that our City needs. The evidence of that is impossible to ignore. They've had their chance, over ten years of power, and they've blown it."

 

Former Southampton Independents Councillor Andrew Pope

CAMPAIGN VICTORY: Twelve Years Later, Southampton now has a Park and Ride!

Former Southampton City Councillor Andrew Pope

Southampton finally has a Park and Ride for members of the public to use!

It has taken twelve years, and a lot of campaigning work and pressure, but it is finally here, as confirmed on the Southampton City Council website.

The Park and Ride has been a long time coming. Twelve years!

Campaigner and founder of Southampton Independents Andrew Pope started the campaign for a Southampton Park and Ride twelve years ago, back in 2013, when he was still a Labour Councillor on Southampton City Council and Parliamentary Candidate in the 2015 General Election for the New Forest East Constituency.

Andrew says:

"I am delighted to deliver another campaign win that benefits the people of Southampton, to reduce the chaos on our roads, to improve the air quality of our City, and to welcome visitors to Southampton in an orderly and sensible way.

This Park and Ride should have been delivered ten years ago, but as I said at the Council's Planning meeting recently, the Labour-run Council kept writing it in strategy documents but delivered nothing. 

So I had to keep up the pressure with various actions. That is what a campaign needs.  

Of course back in 2018 I realised that suggesting Lidl should pay for it was not a realistic suggestion, but it kept the issue in the headlines of the Daily Echo and put a focus on the issues in that part of the Redbridge ward that I used to represent on the Council.

 

Lidl Construction on Brownhill Way

The Inquiry that I ran in 2013 put pressure on the Hospital to deliver, as did my meeting with the Chief Executive and senior staff. They kept their promise to my Committee. I thanked Hospital staff for that back then and I thank them again now. 

A Park and Ride for hospital staff was a good start. What was needed was one for the public.

During the Shirley by-election in 2024 for which I stood as an Independent candidate, I heard so many Shirley, Coxford and Maybush residents complaining to me on their doorsteps, about hospital parking impacting their area, from Upper Shirley all the way to Wimpson Lane. Park and Ride would help. 

And now, there is a weekend Park and Ride.

It will be interesting to see how this can be made to work well, and then to operate it all week. Southampton needs this. 

As I did with my successful 7-year safe standing campaign and the years-long campaign for sprinklers in all Council tower blocks, I have showed that I deliver for Southampton, no matter what it takes or how long it takes.

I hope that I can continue to inspire other independent campaigners to act for our City, including those who saw me speak at the Planning meeting."

Andrew Pope's Safe Standing Campaign front-page of the Daily Echo

Andrew Pope's Sprinkler Campaign front page in the Daily Echo

Details of Weekend Park and Ride

Southampton City Council's website states:

"Avoid city centre traffic and enjoy easy travel with Southampton’s new Park & Ride service, running on weekends and public holidays. Simply park your car in the car park at the Adanac Health & Innovation Campus multi-storey and hop on a bus to the city centre. It is quick, convenient, and great value!

The car park is accessed from Adanac Drive, SO16 0AZ and is open from:

    6:30am to 9pm on Saturdays
    8.30am to 7pm on Sundays and bank holidays (except for Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Years Day)

Buses will run every:

    20 mins from 7am to 7pm on Saturdays
    30 mins from 7pm to 8.30pm on Saturdays
    20 mins from 9am to 6pm on Sundays and bank holidays"

 

The Details of the Twelve Year Campaign 

In 2012-2013, as Chair of the Council's Health Overview Scrutiny Panel (HOSP), Councillor Pope ran an Inquiry into transport at the hospital, and saw the need for a Park and Ride for Southampton. He confirmed the plans of the Hospital for a Park and Ride for the hospital in his report in 2013 titled "REPORT OF HEALTH OVERVIEW AND SCRUTINY PANEL PUBLIC AND SUSTAINABLE TRANSPORT PROVISION TO SOUTHAMPTON GENERAL HOSPITAL – MINI REVIEW".

In the Recommendations of the Inquiry as outlined in the report:

"The (Hospital) Trust confirmed they had been working to improve transport related issues around the hospital such as hospital parking, park and ride, encouraging cycling and provision of shower facilities." 

Councillor Pope confirmed with the Hospital that they would be:

"Procuring and partnering with local organisations to provide staff with 2 x Trust subsidised Park & Ride services with parking for nom’ 320 staff, removing those cars from the hospital site and also local Southampton road networks." 

Then, after authoring the Labour Council's 2014 Local Election Manifesto, when he left Labour shortly after the 2015 General Election as reported by the Daily Echo, Andrew kept up the pressure on the Park and Ride as the first Southampton Independents councillor on Southampton City Council.

 

Independent Councillor Andrew Pope on BBC South Today

Pope met with the then Chief Executive of the Hospital to discuss the Park and Ride and other issues around the hospital such as parking problems, transport and litter in the area. He later attended another meeting with other Hospital staff to discuss their concrete proposals for a Park and Ride for hospital staff, following up on the promise from the Inquiry that he ran. 

Pope had also listened to the concerns of residents over transport in the City during his entire time as a councillor for eight years, and standing in the 2017 General Election as a Southampton Independents candidate.

 

Southampton Independents Campaigners During the 2017 General Election

 

That Park and Ride later became operative, running - not entirely coincidentally - from near to the new Lidl on Brownhill Way. 

But this was not the end of the campaign. Southampton's residents, the quality of our City's air and visitors to Southampton needed a Park and Ride. 

The regular chaos on Southampton's roads proved how badly the Park and Ride campaign was needed.

 

Keeping Up The Pressure in 2025 

Pope's most recent action on the Park and Ride was when he spoke up, not as a councillor but as a concerned campaigner, on behalf of local residents at the Council's Planning Committee to object to the lack of parking in a proposal to redevelop the derelict Bridge Tavern on Coxford Road, very close to the Southampton General Hospital. 

He mentioned the park and ride when he spoke at the public meeting, and in a statement given to all councillors at the meeting, kept up the pressure:

"Where is Southampton's park and ride for the general public? The one for the staff is a start, but it isn't anywhere near enough. The hospital parking is still a massive problem for Shirley, Coxford and Maybush residents. Until the park and ride is there, the hospital will still be impacting on residents." 

And now, the Park and Ride is finally here!

This is what Southampton Independents and Andrew Pope do - deliver for Southampton.