REALITY has hit home at County Hall this week, with the Tory leadership saying future park and ride plans are now dead in the water.

Councillor Simon Geraghty, the authority’s deputy leader, has admitted Worcester is “too small” for any more and that they are expensive to build and run.

As a top-ranking Tory who spent seven years leading Worcester City Council, Coun Geraghty isn’t one to paint an unrealistic picture of anything, which is exactly why his words of wisdom would have come in so handy back in 2009.

Back then, the language his colleagues within Conservative circles were spouting was about how park and ride could be the utopia to solving our transport woes.

Chief culprit was Coun Derek Prodger, a former cabinet member for transport - a search in our archives throws up all sorts of wonderful quotes about how park and ride was here to change our lives for the better.

Coun Prodger, of course, was cruelly dumped from the county council’s Conservative cabinet in May 2011 - but to this day, the full reasons why that happened have never come out.

Conspiracy theories reigned supreme, with some whispers suggesting the disastrously unpopular Newtown Road bus lane was what “did it” for Prodge.

Other cynics suggest his old friendship was disgraced former leader Dr George Lord, who was later jailed for four years for sex attacks on teenage girls, may not have done him any favours - although it still doesn’t make sense as to why he was singled out.

Now The Source is wondering if his backing for park and ride - which included threats of congestion charging unless more people get out their cars - was actually the nail in the coffin.

I think Coun Adrian Hardman, who decided to wield the axe when Coun Prodger was sunning himself on holiday in Turkey, owes him a proper explanation.

* IT’s been a bad week for UKIP MEP Mike Nattrass, who has been de-selected for next year’s European elections for this region.

The veteran politician put out a press release claiming he’d been “stitched up” by his bosses, and is said to be considering legal action, although quite how that would get him anywhere is beyond us.

The Source now wonders if Carl Humphries, chairman of Worcester’s UKIP branch, could be in hot water himself - rather than keep his counsel, he’s emailed party members across the Midlands saying he’s “amazed and disappointed” by the decision.