The Bath Alliance for Transport and Public Realm has welcomed B&NES Council’s ‘Journey to Net Zero’ as an important development of the 2014 Bath Transport Strategy and last year’s Bath Transport Delivery Action Plan.
In a statement it says:
It is very good that ‘Journey to Net Zero’ now includes within its scope the need for an overall traffic plan to provide a framework for Low Traffic Neighbourhoods and the reduction of traffic through the city centre. The city is still heavily congested by traffic, with consequential poor air quality. These initiatives need to be supported by an overall fall in traffic volumes through the development and implementation of a comprehensive transport plan.
This must reduce traffic intrusion throughout the city by means of constraints, further action on parking, greatly improved public transport and other measures. These cannot be left as aspirations for the longer-term. Much remains to be done to address Bath’s transport problems and to set out how changing the way we travel will contribute to the target of Net Zero.
We call on B&NES Council to establish a Stakeholder Consultative Review Board to support the Council in developing solutions that not only address the problems of transport in Bath, but which also ensures the concerns of those who live and work in the city are understood.
| ___________________________________________________________________ About the Alliance: The Bath Alliance for Transport and Public Realm (“The Alliance”) is twenty two Bath organisations joined informally to provide a unified voice for the majority of Bath stakeholders with vital shared interests in excellent transport and public realm. It has come together to support B&NES Council’s transport effort in Bath and to urge the council to develop and deliver a comprehensive, long term transport plan for the city. The Alliance does not campaign for individual transport initiatives but it does offer guidance on the framework for a plan through its Manifesto . |
| The Alliance believes a Transport Plan for Bath would start with a Vision of Bath as: |
A beautiful city in a green setting with vibrant public spaces, a historic centre free of all but essential traffic, clean air, good mobility and excellent transport infrastructure
The Alliance members are:
Aviva Investors | Bristol and Bath Area Trams Association | Bath BID | Bath Bridge | Bath City Football Club | Bath Festivals | Bath Independent Hospitality Association | Bath Preservation Trust | Bath Spa University | Bath Rugby | British Land | Curo | First West of England | Kaleidoscope Collection | NHS B&NES CCG | NHS RUH | St John’s Foundation | Sustrans | SU Bath | University of Bath | Walk Ride Bath | Wessex Water
This is my first awareness of Bath Alliance for Transport and Public Realm. I see it is mainly composed of businesses with vested interests in transport through Bath. I think it wrongly declares that it represents ‘the majority of Bath stakeholders’, as there’s no representation of the 88,859 residents of the City. That’s fine, at least it’s transparent. But what isn’t transparent is the degree of influence this lobby has on Council transport decisions, and is it proportionate i.e. 22 versus 90,000?
We all need to remain very aware of the various vested interests who are trying to skew the council’s decision-making to serve their own interests, rather than the city’s.
Net Zero? An unattainable pipe dream! ‘Emperor’s New Clothes?’
Reblogged this on Walk Ride Bath and commented:
Although Walk Ride Ride is a member of the Alliance, it is clear that some of the comments in the detailed critique are very focused on removal of through traffic in the top of town and expansion of the historic core to include the Circus, but not Lansdown Crescent or Camden Crescent. The aims of the Alliance seems to be to declassify the Paragon (A4) and shift through traffic north into residential areas (Julian Road and potentially Camden Crescent). We did ask the Alliance not to make statements to that effect. For that reason Walk Ride Bath will be stepping away from the Alliance.
The JNZ is a phenomenal document showing real ambition but is clearly lacking in detail and particularly *good* visuals. The city centre “4 traffic cells” is poorly illustrated and could easily have been presented as Bath’s Living Heart (see https://walkridebath.org.uk/2022/02/02/journey-to-net-zero-a-greener-healthier-more-accessible-vision-of-bath/).
The hugely significant and ambitious circulation plan (using Liveable Neighbourhoods to enforce it) is lost on the public. A draft plan should have been present in the JNZ clearly stating how such a plan would be enforced.
Ghent as an example was taken literally by people rather than as an example of a city that has implemented a central circulation plan. No city, that I know of, has taken the decision to define a circulation plan for the *whole* city. Many are working towards that goal. It is fantastic to see Bath leading in this space.
The council should be congratulated for presenting such a transformative vision however they have left it very open to misinterpretation and they needed to much clearer in spelling out (and illustrating) the full scope and commitment.
With the only visual plan provided by the JNZ being the “4 traffic cells”, social media and local press have simply focused on that one image while the circulation plan was vague and really did not lay out clearly what is needed to achieve it or the preconditions (e.g. circulation plan implemented). They say a picture is worth a 1000 words, well a poor picture is worth 10,000 negative facebook comments. It has not been good.
I can only suggest that the council takes on board the work that Walk Ride Bath has done in this space. We consulted with 100s of people to develop the Bath Living Heart proposal (now showing the 4 traffic cells) and a draft circulation plan (both available here https://walkridebath.org.uk/2022/02/02/journey-to-net-zero-a-greener-healthier-more-accessible-vision-of-bath/ ).
However it is a shame that we need to step down from the Alliance, but we really do not want to be associated with a group that wants to declassify the A4 and move through traffic into residential areas while coaching it in terms of “historic centre” and “remove through traffic from top of town”.
Adam Reynolds – Acting Chair Walk Ride Bath