A residents’ action group staged a meeting attended by over 100 people concerned about the impact of displaced traffic from the New Sydney Place and Sydney Road through-traffic restriction trial.
The meeting was held at St. Michael’s in Bath | Photo courtesy of UNSUNG
Friday 28th February’s meeting came against the backdrop of 12 opposition councillors calling in Bath & North East Somerset Council cabinet member Mark Elliott’s controversial decision to make the Liveable Neighbourhood (LN) scheme permanent.
Bath’s Liberal Democrat MP Wera Hobhouse, along with Lib Dem council cabinet members Kevin Guy, Sarah Warren and Manda Rigby, had been invited to the meeting at St Michael’s Without Church, but only the MP turned up.
The event was organised by UNSUNG – the UNited Sydney Unliveable Neighbourhoods Group – which is made up of residents from Bathwick and Bathampton.
At the meeting, people shared their negative experiences of the scheme and it was revealed that had Councillor Elliott decided not to agree to the order being made permanent, the council would have had to pay back the cost of the scheme – over £300,000 – to the West of England Combined Authority (WECA) which funded it.
Dr Ian Orpen from Bathampton opened the meeting, saying the cabinet members had been invited but “unfortunately all of them had prior engagements”.
However, during the meeting, Ms Hobhouse disclosed: “The decision has been called in and for that reason councillors really felt it was inappropriate to be here.”
Councillor Rigby is the cabinet member for highways and represents Bathwick which includes Sydney Road/Sydney Place. Councillor Guy is the council leader and Councillor Warren is his deputy and cabinet member for climate emergency and sustainable travel.
A resident sharing his concerns with Bath’s MP Wera Hobhouse | Photo courtesy of UNSUNG
On 17th February their fellow cabinet member Mark Elliott, who is in charge of resources, signed off the decision to make the Experimental Traffic Regulation Order (ETRO) permanent.
In making his decision, he said that whilst a majority of respondents to the consultation have opposed the trial being made permanent, the reasons cited for objection – increased congestion and pollution – are not supported by the hard data from traffic and air quality monitoring.
He said: “I agree that the results of the trial demonstrate that the scheme meets our Liveable Neighbourhood policy, achieves the aim of keeping through traffic on the main road, and the benefits of this scheme outweigh any disbenefits.”
UNSUNG spokesperson Neil McCabe gave an overview at the start of the public meeting, saying a Freedom of Information response from B&NES had revealed no recorded accident data for Sydney Road in the past five years.
He said Sydney Road is still on the UK Major Roads Network and on Bath planning maps as the A36.
Mr McCabe said there have been increases in traffic of up to 50% on boundary roads since the ETRO was introduced last April, but nearly 1,500 vehicles have been missing as the A36 has been shut at Limpley Stoke for months for repair work. The road reopened the day after the meeting.
Wera Hobhouse at the meeting | Photo courtesy of UNSUNG
He said the winners from the scheme are 87 households on Sydney Road while the losers are the 490 households on boundary roads, 350 households on Bathwick Estate and 950 households on the A36.
70% of respondents had voted against the scheme and Mr McCabe said the council’s decision to make it permanent breaches DfT guidance on community buy-in.
He said: “A lot of people talk about displacement of traffic. Does it disappear or change your habits? Actually, the numbers are the same, they are just going round the surrounding roads.”
He said there had been no modal shift to active travel.
During the meeting Ms Hobhouse repeatedly stated that she was not the decision-maker and had not selected the areas for LNs in Bath – but she defended the democratic way the council had run this consultation and had contacted those it had a statutory duty to consult.
She admitted however that she would be “tone deaf” if she did not recognise that LNs have created “a lot of anxiety”.
“It is a point of reflection for the council how would they consult in the future better, to not have the anger because nobody wants anger especially if you are a politician and want to get elected again.”
She said that in 2020 the council had invited people to come forward with suggestions for LNs and that the Sydney Road scheme had emerged from that.
We have a council gone rogue. They consult but don’t listen
The meeting heard that at a early design workshop for the scheme, residents had not actually asked for Sydney Road to be closed, just for chicanes or measures to slow traffic.
Ms Hobhouse was told that Bathwick St Mary Church Primary has opposed the LN as the Sydney Road closure has negatively impacted children being able to safely walk to school. And First Bus has said the scheme has pushed a lot of traffic out onto the bottom of Bathwick Hill, delaying its services U1 and U2.
One resident said Councillor Elliot’s justifications in his single member decision had been “hollow”. He said: “We have a council gone rogue. They consult but they don’t listen to the reply.”
Ms Hobhouse was asked to go back to Parliament and ask for the DfT to enforce guidelines on implementing LTNs and make B&NES Council roll back not only the Sydney Road scheme but also the one at Southlands at Weston which was made permanent despite residents’ concerns.
The MP agreed to ask that question of the DfT.
The latest data on the Sydney Road scheme was collected in November when the A36 was partially reopened under two-way traffic lights at Limpley Stoke due to works taking place on the A350.
Ms Hobhouse said that as she understood it, the council had set out its process with a timeline and Highways England had then decided to close the A36.
One audience member told the MP: “I am one of the losers. I live right on the corner of Forester Road and Beckford Road and every day I am watching pedestrians and cyclists try and navigate a road that now has 3,000 more cars and will have more.
“I am watching near-misses from my window and my son who is 12 wanted to come today to ask you why he can’t cycle to school any more safely.”
Ms Hobhouse said: “I am honestly trying to understand. I am not your local councillor and you will have to talk to your local councillor.”
The resident thanked her for being at the meeting when her councillor (Manda Rigby) was not.
A North Road resident said: “We live about 30 to 40 feet from Sydney Road. We weren’t even consulted. We found out about this by accident.
“We weren’t even part of the original consultation. When we asked our ward councillor why that was, she said we weren’t legally obliged to consult you so we didn’t.
“We were told by her that if the traffic backed up outside our house, the trial would not be made permanent.”
The resident said she had sent the councillor photos of cars backed up endlessly.
“Sydney Road may now be a Liveable Neighbourhood but ours is unliveable now because of the displacement of traffic.”
One Sydney Road resident told Ms Hobhouse that she had not been consulted before the scheme went ahead and highlighted her fears for her personal safety while walking back at night on what is now a very quiet street.
She said she feels “very, very vulnerable as a woman”, and it “limits my social activities”.
She said that following the recent sexual assault at Lansdown, “I am even more nervous about walking back after dark”.
One woman at the meeting said: “I don’t live in the Sydney Road area but I do live just off Julian Road, which is subject to another LTN.
“The council has justified all these projects by saying it’s going to reduce the amount of traffic in Bath overall and encourage walking and cycling yet they have produced no evidence that this is happening. If you close a road, the traffic is just displaced on to other roads.”
Ms Hobhouse said that evidence of the long-term modal shift takes time but highlighted anecdotal evidence from King Edward’s School in North Road that 30% more children are now taking the bus.
One resident said that £306,000 had been spent on the scheme and it did not make sense that the council had installed permanent bollards for a trial rather than temporary planters. Ms Hobhouse said she would ask the council why that was the case.
Another resident said: “Forgive my cynicism – the council has accepted this money, that’s why they are going ahead with it.”
Mr Hobhouse said that if a pot of money for an issue is available, a council would be “pretty silly” not to accept it.
Neil McCabe said that funding for LNs comes from WECA and that if a scheme is withdrawn, that money needs to be given back. In this case, the council would have to repay £306,000 as well as pay for the reinstatement of the road, which it is believed would be around £250,000.
After the meeting he said: “We thank Ms Hobhouse for giving us, and our resident community, her time on Friday night. Hopefully, she now realises just how flawed and potentially dangerous this LN is, and the failure of council leadership to admit their mistakes.
“Once again, it is a shame that, as has been the case throughout implementation of this LN and others, councillors have failed to engage with concerned residents.
“Only our MP had the guts to turn up. It was abundantly clear that Wera was left out in the cold by the council leadership to try to defend the indefensible.”
Mr McCabe said the council’s scrutiny committee would be discussing the ETRO at its meeting on Thursday 13th March: “We call on the members of the committee to follow their consciences, rather than party lines.”
A GoFundMe page has been launched on UNSUNG’s website – https://www.unsungsydney.com/ – to fund a legal challenge if required.
The Bath Echo attended the meeting. We have asked the council’s administration to comment on the concerns raised.
