Bath residents are aiming to raise thousands of pounds to reopen a street in the city to traffic.
Looking down Sydney Place, with the new LTN restriction in place
Sydney Road was closed to through traffic in April as part of Bath & North East Somerset Council’s programme of liveable neighbourhoods, also called low-traffic neighbourhoods or LTNs.
Liveable neighbourhoods aim to make streets safer and more pleasant for cycling and walking — but they are controversial as others argue they just make other roads more dangerous.
In August, the Lower Lansdown liveable neighbourhood was blocked after the council did not contest a legal challenge from neighbours who warned it would dangerously push traffic past children’s schools.
Now people are aiming to raise £5,000 to bring a similar challenge against the Sydney Road liveable neighbourhood before it can be made permanent.
£1,660 has been raised so far. The fundraiser, which is being run through gofundme.com, states: “The New Sydney Place LTN in Bath is deeply unpopular with surrounding residents, and is likely to reduce safety and increase congestion by pushing traffic onto less safe boundary roads.”
It added: “However, B&NES may have made a fatal error. By not publishing an adequate statement of reasons setting out the aims of the ETRO [experimental traffic regulation order], we believe there is no legal basis in law to convert it to a permanent TRO [traffic regulation order].
“The type of statement of reasons used for New Sydney Place has already been proven inadequate in the legal objection to the Lower Lansdown LTN, and we therefore think we have strong grounds to challenge any move to make the ETRO permanent in court.
“We need funds to raise this challenge, and to cover B&NES costs if we aren’t successful — the reason for this appeal. Any funds not used will be donated to Dorothy House.”
Neil McCabe, who started the fundraiser, told the Local Democracy Reporting Service: “On a personal basis the impact is small but annoying.
“I’m more focused on the fact that it results in reduced safety and increased pollution and congestion by pushing traffic onto less safe roads.”
In July, people from nearby roads attended a full meeting of Bath & North East Somerset Council to warn of the impact of the scheme on nearby roads.
Alan Morely, who lives near the bottom of North Road which joins the A36 just before Sydney Road, said: “As a result of the closure, we now have more traffic queueing in front of our houses, particularly during school runs.”
A statement read out on behalf of Daniel Selwood, who lives on the edge of the Bathwick Estate but was unable to attend the meeting, said: “Near misses are happening the whole time because of the Sydney Road LTN. We see it daily. It is a near miss at the moment, it is not always going to be a near miss.”
It added: “Their liveable neighbourhood has become our unliveable neighbourhood.”
But at an earlier council meeting in May, people from Sydney Road and Sydney Place praised the scheme. Mary Allan, who lives on Sydney Place, said: “We have been freed from the tyranny of the motor vehicle. Restricting through traffic has proved the only way to achieve this.”
The controversial scheme has even been debated in Parliament, with Bath MP Wera Hobhouse and former North East Somerset MP Jacob Rees-Mogg clashing over the issue shortly before Parliament was dissolved for the 2024 General Election.
Bath & North East Somerset Council has insisted it will bring back plans for the Lower Lansdown liveable neighbourhood “as soon as possible”.
The council said it did not contest the case because there were “minor technical issues” with the experimental traffic regulation order (ETRO) which would have brought the scheme in, and the delay for the court date meant it had missed its slot with the contractors.
At the Liberal Democrat Party Conference in September, a top councillor from the Liberal Democrat-run council read out a message in a speech to the conference from the council’s deputy leader stating: “We need more powers to be able to shut roads without quite so much ability for legal challenge.”
The council had originally planned to bring in 15 liveable neighbourhoods across the city, but this has been cut back to 11 due to “funding constraints” and the impact of inflation on construction costs.
The crowdfunding page can be found here.
John Wimperis, Local Democracy Reporter
