FIRSTLY, I would like to say thank you for the most entertaining day at the Ageas Bowl yesterday where my wife and I enjoyed the cricket, the weather and the results.

Sadly however, the plaudits stop there after our experience with the Park and Ride scheme that was operating after the game concluded.

We left the ground the minute the winning run was scored and made our way to the bus park.

It became immediately apparent that there were insufficient buses to transport the spectators.

On the face of it there were many buses in the park but it seemed to take an eternity to fill a bus, despatch it and move the next bus to the head of the queue.

We were headed for queue B and the line we were ushered into had just two buses waiting to load passengers.

As there were an estimated 500 people waiting we were clearly not all going to be able to board and had to wait for returning buses from Wide Lane. Eventually we were able to board a bus and be driven to Wide Lane.

Upon arrival there, our bus and others had to wait while buses in front unloaded their passengers, reversed out from their stand to return to the Ageas Bowl to collect more passengers.

We were then able to disembark and walk to our cars which were grid locked and unable to exit from the park. Approximately one hour after returning to our car, an attendant opened up another exit allowing us to eventually leave the park.

We eventually arrived home at 11.40 pm, nearly 150 minutes AFTER the game ended.

As I live in Lee on the Solent, THIS IS TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE, when it took us just 30 minutes to drive from home to the car park for the match.

Before this system is used again a number of improvements need to be made with the principal one being at Wide Lane to ensure a smoother disembarkation of passengers after the match WITHOUT THE NEED FOR BUSES HAVING TO REVERSE TOWARDS INCOMING BUSES WAITING to unload passengers.

A smoother flow would have increased the speed at which buses were able to return to the ground to collect more passengers.

I understand that the land is no longer available adjacent to Tesco’s at Hamble where I have used Park and Ride previously, this was an excellent system and its layout needs to be replicated at the new site.

Arriving home at such an hour took the gloss from what was otherwise a very enjoyable day, a great pity.

David Gourley

Lee-on-the-Solent