A public consultation got under way yesterday, Tuesday 1st July, as Bath & North East Somerset Council takes legal steps to make one of its controversial liveable neighbourhood schemes permanent.
Looking down Sydney Place, with the LTN restriction in place
But objectors to the through-traffic restriction at New Sydney Place and Sydney Road say their fight will go on.
Neil McCabe, from the United Sydney Unliveable Neighbourhoods Group (UNSUNG) says the 700-strong group needs to prepare for court action and raise at least £50,000 to mount a challenge.
Writing on UNSUNG’s website, he said the council had “made a sham” of any consultation to date, adding: “You may indeed wonder why they are consulting at all, having made the decision to proceed earlier in the year.
“This is because they messed up the implementation of the Experimental Traffic Regulation Order (ETRO) by publishing an inadequate ‘Statement of Reasons’ justifying the scheme.
“They therefore need to implement a permanent Traffic Regulation Order as if the ETRO never happened, and this requires another round of ‘consultation’, with B&NES going through the motions.”
In April 2024, the council launched the experimental through-traffic restriction at New Sydney Place and Sydney Road under its Liveable Neighbourhood (LN) programme. LNs are also called low traffic neighbourhoods (LTNs).
A row of bollards prevent drivers from cutting through to avoid the A36/Bathwick Street junction.
Whilst most of those who responded were against the ETRO being made permanent, for reasons including that congestion and pollution have increased elsewhere, the council said that hard data from traffic and air quality monitoring did not support that.
In February, cabinet member for resources Councillor Mark Elliott (Lansdown) decided the scheme should be made permanent. His decision was called in by opposition councillors, but a scrutiny panel upheld it.
UNSUNG told the council in May that it was poised to take legal action in the wake of the landmark High Court decision which saw a group of residents defeat Lambeth Council over a controversial traffic restriction. But B&NES Council rejected a letter from the campaign group’s solicitor and said it would continue with making the scheme permanent.
Last month, the council asked for comments on plans to build a new raised continuous crossing across New Sydney Place at its junction with the A36 Sydney Place/Darlington Street, for which the deadline for comments is 10th July.
Now B&NES says the measures it trialled and consulted on at New Sydney Place and Sydney Road will become permanent, subject to a formal Traffic Regulation Order (TRO) consultation which closes on 24th July.
In the coming autumn/winter, it will publish the outcomes of the continuous crossing engagement and its final, detailed design. In the autumn, it will also publish the outcome of the formal TRO.
Next spring, subject to the TRO being successful, the council will install permanent kerbing around the bollards that form the through-traffic restriction and build the continuous crossing.
It says it will also redesign the North Road junction to ensure cyclists’ safety and review this design with “key stakeholders”.
The timeline also says that permanent kerbing will be installed in 2027 at the northern junctions of Sydney Road and North Road with the A36 Warminster Road. This will happen at the same time as the final Bath Walking, Wheeling and Cycling Links measures for the A36 to reduce disruption.
The Bath Echo invited the council to respond to UNSUNG’s criticism that it had “messed up”.
Councillor Joel Hirst, cabinet member for sustainable transport strategy, told us: “The through-traffic trial scheme in Sydney Road at its junction with New Sydney Place followed consultation and co-design workshops on the Liveable Neighbourhood programme with the community.
“It was installed under an experimental traffic regulation order (ETRO) which allowed the council to monitor the impact of the trial on traffic and air quality as well as giving people an opportunity to comment on the scheme. All the evidence collected during the ETRO consultation informed the decision to make the trial permanent under a formal TRO.
“The trial prevented more than 3,500 vehicles a day from using a residential street as a cut through to avoid traffic lights on the A36 – including heavy goods vehicles – and trial data tells us that this did not make a significant difference to traffic flows, journey times or air quality on the surrounding roads.
“We are now undertaking a full Traffic Regulation Order consultation which is compliant with all the statutory requirements and will make the road changes permanent if approved.
“It gives people further opportunity to raise any objections or representations of support, and we will consider these alongside the results from the ETRO consultation when reaching a final decision in the autumn.
“The consultation runs until 5pm on Thursday 24th July and can be found here: https://www.bathnes.gov.uk/sydneyroadETRO”.
