BRT public inquiry decision draws near

By pwiltshire

A decision which could determine whether a £57.5 million transport package for Bath stands a chance of surviving the public sector spending squeeze should be made in the next fortnight.

Senior civil servants say they will decide early next month whether to call a public inquiry into four sets of compulsory purchase orders over land needed for the Bath Transportation Package.

One set of Government officials controversially decided last month that an inquiry was not needed into the two most contentious aspects of Bath and North East Somerset Council's package - a new park and ride site at Bathampton and a new bus route along a former railway line at Newbridge.

Now another team are considering whether the 160 objections they have received into the orders affecting 59 plots of land in the city are serious enough to warrant a separate inquiry hearing.

B&NES has been given a deadline of March to get its paperwork in order on the package to be sure of securing the Government funding which will pay for the vast majority of the schemes.

That means it has to secure all the CPOs by that time, with a public inquiry likely to push the whole process beyond the next General Election and into major funding doubt.

The inquiry is now the most realistic hope for campaigners of delaying the scheme until such time that a new Government reviews its commitment to public spending.

Objectors and council officials are now due to meet in court next Friday to discuss an application for an injunction which would halt progress on the package.

Officials at the Guildhall insist that the way in which planning permission was granted for the Bus Rapid Transit route through Newbridge was entirely above board, with the decision legally watertight.

But a campaigner, supported by the Bath Heritage Watchdog pressure group and other campaigners, has applied through the county court system for an injunction to stop work on the scheme.

He is accusing the council of the common law offence of misfeasance in a public office because he says it has not replied to letters questioning the legality of the permission.

Meanwhile, campaigners say the council's claims over congestion levels in Newbridge are wildly inaccurate.

B&NES has argued the BRT is needed because it says it can take up to 13 minutes at peak periods to get from Newbridge park and ride to Windsor Bridge, and up to 18 minutes to get from the city centre to the park and ride site.

The current park and ride bus timetable allows just 10 minutes for the inward journey to Westgate Buildings, while surveys by Newbridge residents over the summer concluded that the park and ride to Windsor Bridge leg took just four minutes by car even at rush hour times.

Chronicle reporters took four minutes for this leg by car and seven and a half minutes by bus in the early morning rush hour last week.

The council says it is standing by the times, which were included in a document issued last year.

It has also repeated its insistence that alternative routes to the BRT - using the existing Lower or Upper Bristol roads - would have been more expensive and not delivered journey time savings.

A spokesman added: "The fact of the matter is that the Government were very clear that had either of these routes been used this would have represented a significant enough change to the business case for a formal reassessment to be required because they wouldn't have offered the same benefits as the proposed route, effectively meaning other transport projects in the region would have been funded instead of the Bath Transportation Package."