Re-thinking street space

Richard Wyatt

There is no one-size-fits-all approach to plans for setting up a network of Liveable Neighbourhoods within B&NES.

That’s according to a report on resident feedback from initial community engagement workshops forms part of a Liveable Neighbourhoods update report, to be presented to cabinet on Thursday 8 September.

Bath & North East Somerset Council’s Liveable Neighbourhoods programme is being developed in 15 priority areas, in collaboration with communities and stakeholders, through a series of individual co-design workshops to discuss issues and specific solutions that could help make their communities safer, cleaner and healthier.

The report highlights the positive community engagement achieved to date and includes a timeline for the next stages of the ongoing consultation with residents, businesses and community groups, including wider public engagement commencing in the autumn.

Cabinet is asked to allow the lead member for Sustainable Transport, directors of Place Management and Sustainable Communities, in consultation with cabinet members and ward councillors, to make decisions over which interventions will be implemented in each area.

Liveable Neighbourhoods aim to re-think how street space is used to prioritise people and help make streets safer, using techniques such as restricting through traffic, stopping anti-social parking and re-allocating road space to create wider pavements and better crossings. 

They also aim to provide a healthy environment to enable people to build more walking or wheeling into their daily life, which not only improves congestion and air quality, but also residents’ wellbeing through increased daily physical activity and decreased social isolation.

Councillor Sarah Warren, deputy leader and cabinet member for Climate and Sustainable Travel, said: “I am delighted with the results of the Liveable Neighbourhoods co-design workshops so far and the various interventions our communities are suggesting. 

There is no one size fits all approach, so each neigbourhood’s interventions will be different, depending upon the needs and requirements of that particular community.  This programme demonstrates why it is so important to engage directly with our communities, as they know their local areas best and can help shape the proposed designs.

“Following our co-design workshops, reports have been developed for each area.  Our workshop attendees have been invited to view the reports and shortlist the measures they’d like to see included in their community’s draft design, which will be available for public engagement from the autumn.

  As these designs are draft proposals only, I encourage everyone to get involved in the wider public engagement, as you know your local communities and understand what will or won’t work and where we can have the most impact for residents.

.“I’m looking forward to seeing the final results of our engagement later in the year, and how the designs will benefit our communities.  We will also need to consider how we can extend the programme in more areas going forward, including in the many other communities who have also applied to become a Liveable Neighbourhood.”

You can read the full cabinet report on the council’s website. 

Cabinet meets on Thursday 8 September at 6:30pm and the meeting will be broadcast on the council’s YouTube channel.

To find out more about the Liveable Neighbourhoods programme, visit 
https://beta.bathnes.gov.uk/liveable-neighbourhoods.​​ 
 

Published by Richard Wyatt

Freelance Journalist, broadcaster, columnist and local historian. Director of Bath Newseum. Married and lives in Bath. Interested in local history, architecture and visual display in museums and urban spaces.

2 Comments

  1. Reblogged this on Walk Ride Bath and commented:
    Page 6 of the Liveable Neighbourhoods report (https://democracy.bathnes.gov.uk/documents/s74050/Liveable%20Neighbourhoods%20Update%20Report.pdf) is the critical bit which explains where the funding for the Liveable Neighbourhoods program comes from. It’s £6m (inc £1m match funding) from WECA’s Sustainable Transport Settlement Liveable Neighbourhoods fund.

    My understanding of this funding is that it can only be used to deliver traffic reduction measures. Not softer measures like traffic calming or even pedestrian crossings. That basically means school streets and modal filters. Everything else has to be funded from other council funds. I’ve written to Dan Norris to get it confirmed. Note this is what all council leaders signed up to when they agreed the settlement many many months ago before any of the LN workshops were launched.

    If Dan Norris confirms my understanding, ergo this must also have been understood by the council cabinet, and given the debacle around Southdown having a school street removed from a workshop exhibition as it was not proposed at the workshop, it does beg the question: what were workshop attendees told could be built?

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