Every match day or evening match at Portman Road there is significant congestion and air pollution increases in Ipswich. There have also been reports of parents getting stuck in the traffic and having to pull over to comfort their young baby until the traffic calmed down, with the town now being a no-go area on match days.
Suffolk County Council as part of their greenest county strategy, have decided that football matches at Portman Road are to be banned until such time that Ipswich Town produce and implement a travel plan to cut the amount of motor traffic coming into the centre of Ipswich on match days/evenings.
Suggestions for the travel plan include:
- subsidising the Park and Ride bus, which already pretty much goes past the stadium, including extending it’s running times to cover evening matches;
- banning the use of car parks surrounding the stadium by cars and using them for cycle parking instead; and
- chartering special trains so that there is enough capacity to cope with demand.