Commuters using a busy suburban rail station will have fewer Park and Ride spaces available next week (Monday October 24 to Friday October 28) while resurfacing work is carried out.

Centro, the region’s transport authority, will be relaying the surface on part of the Park and Ride site at Chester Road Station in Sutton Coldfield resulting in up to 65 free parking spaces and five of the nine spaces for the disabled being made unavailable.

Contractors will carry the work out in two phases over the course of the week. The first phase will see around 40 bays resurfaced with a further 65 completed during the second phase.

Centro spokesman Steve Swingler said: “We apologise for any inconvenience the work may cause but we have tried to minimise disruption by carrying out the resurfacing during half term when the station is less busy.

“There will still be more than 116 free Park and Ride spaces available during the week and staff will be on hand to direct motorists in and out of the site and to vacant spaces.”

Centro added an extra 37 spaces to the Park and Ride site two-and-a-half years ago to help meet soaring demand from passengers and the facility’s 186 spaces are now calculated to take up to 130,000 car journeys off Birmingham’s roads each year.

Mr Swingler added:  “Those motorists choosing to use the region’s 6,000 free Park and Ride spaces and then complete their journeys by train are directly responsible for taking millions of car trips off our roads each year.

“That means fewer carbon emissions and less congestion, an increasingly serious problem which is costing the West Midlands economy a staggering £4 billion a year in wasted fuel and delays.”