Scale of park and ride overhaul unveiled
Opponents of plans to build a new park-and-ride site on the edge of Bath have stepped up their campaign – at the same time as the council has given details of its plans to expand three other sites around the city.
The council wants to expand its existing sites at Lansdown, Newbridge and Odd Down to provide an extra 1,120 parking spaces.
-
The preferred site for the new park-and-ride base is at Mill Lane in Bathampton, which would provide 1,400 spaces.
But residents around Bathampton believe it would have a devastating effect on local wildlife and would do little to reduce traffic problems.
Around 100 people including schoolchildren from Bathampton and Batheaston Primary Schools attended a protest against the plans.
Batheaston resident Alison Millar said: "The Bathampton Meadows are an essential green space. They provide an important seasonal wetland habitat.
"They give an identity to Bath and the outlying villages by providing a break between potential urban sprawl.
"The beautiful approach to Bath along the Avon Valley is as important to the character of the city as any of the attractions that are within the World Heritage Site."
The protesters have the support of the South West branch of the Campaign to Protect Rural England.
Vice-chairman of the organisation, Henrietta Sherwin, said: "Park and rides were conceived in the early 1970s before transport policy had moved towards demand management and trying to restrict car traffic.
"They are an out-of-date policy and no substitute for the development of an integrated public transport network, particularly with an ageing population.
"Now they are sold as providing transport choice but the question needs to be asked, choice for whom?
"Should limited resources be spent to encourage car access to Bath? Park-and-rides are expensive and have a considerable environmental impact but a very marginal congestion benefit."
The cost of the expansion would be funded by the £54 million Bath Transportation Package.
The council expects the park-and-ride expansion to tackle the congestion problems caused by 27,000 people travelling in and out of Bath by car for work every day.
It says the expansion of the park-and-ride network around the city is needed to combat the predicted 14 per cent increase in 10 years of cars travelling through the city during the morning rush hour.
The enlarged Bath park-and-ride network would include 390 new spaces at Lansdown, 500 new spaces at Newbridge and 230 new spaces at Odd Down.
Newbridge residents have already objected to the proposals.
Cllr Charles Gerrish, B&NES cabinet member for customer services, said: "The expansion of Bath and North East Somerset Council's park-and-ride services is just one element of the effort to support better public transport.
"The council's aim to improve transport and the public realm is undermined by limited overall park-and-ride capacity.
"The council's park-and-ride provision requires a radical overhaul through the addition of more than 2,000 spaces.
"Workers and visitors from outside Bath, including in our own communities of Keynsham, Midsomer Norton and Radstock, and the rural villages, must have better access to their jobs and local services.
"In turn, this will support the place the community wants Bath to be – one where the congestion is reduced and pedestrian and cycling access is improved, with space for public transport to move.
"The likely alternative is gridlock in a decade if these improvements, with others such as better conventional bus routes and the bus rapid transit, do not go ahead."
A public exhibition giving details of the park-and-ride proposals will be held at the Guildhall from November 6 to 8.
6 Comments
by Bubba, Bath
Friday, October 31 2008, 2:16PM
“Jo, There is more than 1 seat in a car and many people have designated drivers. On the M4 there is a sign that says "Park and Ride Saturdays leave at Junction 1 M32". This is for all the visitors who are coming to Bristol to see Cabot Circus. The same can be said of Bath. A lot of visitors to Bath will drive into Bath from the London road sitting in the queue for hours. They are tourists who will clog up the small streets of Bath. As i have said before, a big shiny sign saying Park & Ride fast into Bath city centre £1.50, more than likely people will take that route. I appreciate that the bus service may be poor but that is First, not BANES. Banes are just trying to solve a problem. Residents moaned when the bus lane went in on the London road saying there was one bus every half hour so why not open it up to all traffic. Now you will have many buses using it ferrying in all the visitors. I have also said before, if you would prefer the buses to be improved and fares reduced rather than a P and R, are you then suggesting that you want visitors to park in the streets of Batheaston and Bathford outside someones house to then catch a cheap bus into town??? Of course not. I catch a bus into town, not the P and R but if I go to Bristol, I catch the P and R at Brislington. I dont sit in the queues or have to pay for extorionate parking. Fee's. Maybe the P and R needs to be built and First need to sort out the buses but stopping the P & R wont help anyone. Just a little thing I have noticed, Why is it that people drive down the bus lane on the Wells road at the bottom when it is in operation, 8 to 10Am, but sit in a huge queue in the right lane when it isnt in operation???? I wonder whether they actually read the signs. Maybe that might be a way to reduce queues, improve driver observation skills. Go at a Green light, pull out of the Wells road onto the Lower Bristol Road when clearly nothing is coming and maybe read the signs and get in the correct lane to go over the bridge rather than cut someone up and nearly have an accident.”
by Sireal, UK
Thursday, October 30 2008, 2:06PM
“I agree with Tim. I worked with someone from Keynsham and it was cheaper for her to drive to Newbridge P&R instead of catching a bus from Keynsham to Bath. I know other people who live in towns/villages close to Bath that have to rely on buses, but only because they don't have cars. They say that if they did have cars it would be cheaper for them to drive into Bath.
This is true when you look at how much it is to get from Twerton to the city centre on the bus! (rip-off!)
The main problem is traffic passing through Bath - P&R's will never solve this! And the BRT will definately never solve this problem!”
by Jo, Bath
Thursday, October 30 2008, 11:37AM
“G, Bath. you say people have to come to Bath to keep the pubs going? ... I hope your not suggesting people should drive to the P&R, go to the pub to get lashed and then drive home from the P&R again! Its true that people do HAVE to come to Bath to keep it going, but I'm afraid you are wrong if you believe the ONLY way they can get here is by using P&R. You also say people opposing the expansion of P&Rs have made "no decent suggestions as to how to improve the problem"...well clearly you haven't been at any of the council, scrutiny or public meetings because there have been several suggestions, some very simple and inexpensive ... but probably a little to efficient for this unambitious council to take on.
It really is a rubbish argument to just dismiss peoples view by writing it off as "moaning". We are not moaning, we just expect that in this day and age our council should be able to come up with intergrated transport solutions which aim at zero emissions, considers the environment and puts people first ...rather than old fashioned, car based, tarmac over anything green, P&R schemes.”
by Tim, Newbridge
Wednesday, October 29 2008, 9:13AM
“I think I can answer a couple of the issues raised here.
Shaun - the fact that Bath is Georgian has nothing to do with my objections to expandingteh Newbridge site.
G, Bath - You ask how people are expected to get into Bath without expanded park and rides. The answer is proper public transport. I work in a small office in the centre of Bath. Two members of staff live in Saltford and use the Newbridge park and ride to get to work. I asked them why they did this rather than catch the X39, which runs every 12 minutes during the day, from Saltford to Bath and would give very similar door to door journey times.. The answer was cost. (or at least percieved cost) The P&R costs little over a £1 per day if you buy tickets in advance. The X39 costs about £5 per day.
It is vital to keep the workers flowing into Bath. Some of them will live in tiny villages and for them P&R is the answer but I bet if you did a survey of P&R users you woudl find that perhaops half of the peopel comes from places like Peasdown, Saltford, Keynsham - places that are large enough to be served by a frequent and decent bus service and in some cases places that already have a decent bus service, but one which is underused because it is overpriced relative to the low cost of P&R fares.
I object to expanding the park and ride site because P&R buses reduce the traffic into the city centre but at the same time increase traffic driving to the P&R. if we had an integrated public transport policy and sensible fares on the ordinary buses, I predict that the demand for park and ride would fall and the huge expansion of the sites and the BRT would not be needed.
P&R has its place but all too often it is used as a subsititute for proper public transport by councils who are too lazy to tackle the real problem of providing proper public transport”
by Shaun, Bath
Wednesday, October 29 2008, 7:53AM
“Sadly any plan to do with any development gets met with the same knee jerk not in Bath its Georgian you know statements. This just results in the bad but visible projects being pushed through and the good but mundane projects being shelved. Bathhampton Meadows is not some great natural playground serving the community its a marshy flood plain, and if they get their way and block the P+R it will once again be empty and unused as it has for the last 20 years I have lived in Bath.
This is the one decent project in the whole transport mess; Bath has to have a P+R on the East side accessible from the Bypass and the Meadows or Charmy Down are the only two real options.”
by G, Bath
Tuesday, October 28 2008, 9:18PM
“For the love of god, where exactly do you people think these cars can go. People HAVE to come to Bath as visitors to keep shops open, pubs busy and everyone happy, they cant keep sitting on the London road and half way up the bypass for an hour at a time as they just wont come to Bath again. How funny that the same residents who oposed the link between the A46 and A36 that was to prevent trucks using the London road who still complain about trucks are now against the P and R too. And how funny that residents of Newbridge dont want the expansion there. You want it all fixed up but you dont want to pay, have no decent suggestions on how to deal with the problems, you just want to moan at every suggestion that is thought up. A brand new state of the art low emsission bus that can take 70 people is far better than 50 cars.”