Does anybody have experience of parking at any of the Swindon station car parks in the morning ?  Will be moving to Swindon soon and having checked out the parking facilities (which seem plentiful albeit for ^6.50/^7.00 per day !) was wondering how busy they usually are on your normal day ?  The car park on the north side of the line would be most suitable for me (North Star side) but was left thinking somehow this car park is probably heaving by 8am no doubt ?  Which is most likely to offer spaces at around 8-8.30am (if any !) ?

Thanks 

I concur ! I too will be moving to Swindon in the Spring (from Newbury) and have been doing a fair bit of research in to the various commuting options available to London.  I considered the driving to Didcot thing but having tried this journey the other night decided that this was not an option for me (that B4507 is an awful road to drive on and not a drive I want to face first thing in the morning nor last thing at night)  It took at least 25 minutes just to get to Wantage and I couldn't be bothered to go any further having made my mind up about that particular journey already !

Although I don't need to go to London every day of the working week, I would certainly need to go at least 2 days, sometimes 3 days per week.  They are not set days each week.  FGW^▸ (First Great Western) do not offer Day Return's from Swindon to London, for what reason I don't know (in order to maximise revenue I assume ?); but I would be interested to know what the reason is if anyone knows ?  What has distance got to do with anything ?

So we are faced with the option of a Standard Open Return costing ^98.00 (which IMHO^▸ (in my humble opinion) is just simply outrageous) and, erm, that's it. ^98.00. Lovely.

How obtuse is it, however, that a Day Return between Swindon and Didcot costs ^30.00 and a Day Return from Didcot to London costs ^42.20.  A combined saving of ^25.80.  I am aware of the 'train has to stop at Didcot' for this to be valid but with the exception of about 2 services, all trains from Swindon-London-Swindon call at Didcot.  I don't understand how they can justify charging ^98.00 when this is a valid alternative ?

I have also priced the weekly and monthly season ticket options and have come to the conclusion that based on the number of times I will travel it is probably just about more cost efficient to buy a monthly season ticket but was left totally confused having called the FGW Telesales number to clarify the costs etc.  Having already been in possession of a monthly season ticket on the Newbury to London route, I am aware that, on renewal, FGW give a 5% discount.  Now, I must confess, I am not entirely certain why this is so, I have a feeling it has something to do with FGW's punctuality performance, but I stand to be corrected.  When I asked about the renewal discount, the agent said that this would be down to the discretion of the person selling me the ticket at the tme ??! WTF ?  When I asked why the discounts were given, there was a stony silence.  Is this some unwritten rule that, although FGW have to adhere to it they do not make a point of acknowledging it ?  So I said to the agent, did it depend on the tone of my voice, the colour of my socks or something but again she reiterated her point about it being down to the discretion of the ticket agent at the time.  Either they do give a discount or they b****y don't !!  Why is this all shrouded in FGW mystery ?