A number of local residents have reacted with anger to the announced scrapping of the Park and Rail plan by the new Conservative administration at B&NES Council.
The new Conservative administration of B&NES has also been accused of breaking promises after it also announced it will consult on putting a bus-based Park and Ride site on Bathampton Meadows.
Councillor Alison Millar (Liberal Democrat, Bathavon North) said: “I am incredulous that the Conservatives are yet again proposing Bathampton Meadows for a Park and Ride site.
“This scheme was roundly rejected by local residents in 2011, as it will not do the job.
“After 3 months in power the Conservatives are planning to wreck the beautiful and environmentally-sensitive Meadows, despite promising during the election that they would not do so.
“The Tories are also denying the people of Bathampton, Batheaston and Bathford the government-supported, new train station that they were due to get; a station which would have had direct links into Bristol and beyond via MetroWest.
“There is a disappointing predictability to all of this. This is a lost opportunity to deal with the traffic problem to East of Bath in an imaginative and sustainable way for the benefit of all Bathonians.”
Steve Bradley, Bath Liberal Democrats’ Parliamentary spokesperson, added: “A future-proof ‘Park and Rail’ is being scrapped in favour of a short-sighted ‘Park and Ruin’.
“The Lib Dems’ rail-based solution would have been more sustainable for the long term, part–funded by government, and have resolved the longstanding issue with through-lorries using the A46/A36 route.
“The Conservative proposals will damage the beauty and amenity of Bathampton Meadows without delivering a genuine solution to congestion and pollution in the east of Bath. And they are refusing to give local residents the opportunity to comment on a rail-based alternative, offering them a tired menu of the same old options instead.
“Bath deserves better.”
Councillor Neil Butters (Bathavon South), the Liberal Democrat Transport spokesperson added: “It’s appalling that the Conservatives’ ‘Objectives for the Park and Ride Scheme’ do not include either environmental impact or minimising the visual effect of the site.
“They previously promised both of these factors would be important in deciding where to put the Park and Ride, claiming they would ‘deliver Bath’s greenest Park & Ride ever’.
“Surely a further key aim should be to get into the centre of Bath in as short a time as possible. By rail, from a high-capacity, hidden car park at Bathampton, journey times would be a little over four minutes; by bus: up to 21 minutes. Not much of an incentive to leave the car behind.
“The Conservatives are short-sightedly going for what they think is a cheap and fast solution, rather than the best solution; a solution that Bath, as a World Heritage Site, deserves.
“If the Government can find the money to protect Stonehenge then why should we be treated as inferior?”
It was announced last week that a consultation is to take place on plans for a new Park & Ride to the east of Bath, and that the Park & Rail scheme had been shelved.
