ETRO Decision Imminent - Letter & Fact Sheet sent to all Councillors

It would appear that the decision on whether or not to make the Winifred's Lane ETRO permanent is due very soon. Curiously this will be made as a 'Single Cabinet Member Decision', but by two B&NES Cabinet Members, Councillors Joel Hirst and Manda Rigby.

The HoLCG believes it is important that all B&NES Councillors have the correct facts in front of them.We have sent the letter below to all Councillors including a list of key question that they need to ask as a decision is made. We also provide that a fact sheet which lists all the key issues and concerns with the Winifred's Lane ETRO. The fact sheet can be found here.

Dear Councillors,

Lower Lansdown ETRO imminent decision, specifically the Winifred's Lane ETRO - key information

As the decision approaches, we attach a fact sheet relating to the Winifred's Lane ETRO. Please would you read. Prior to trialling, clear risks were identified by local residents and safety professionals, but the trial still went ahead. Despite risks materialising, the intervention has not been abandoned. Thus, there is still a chance it’ll be made permanent.

This trial is an opportunity for the council to demonstrate that decision making is objective, rational, and fair, and isn't a judgment of the aims of the general programme, which are positive, but of the reality of this specific intervention, which is dire for many. Footage can be viewed in a short slide deck here, with more images and videos here.

B&NES has rightly stated that decisions should be data driven. Trial data wasn’t released before the decision despite requests, so residents paid for an approved provider (Citisense) to generate traffic data which is used in the fact sheet - the council’s own findings should be cross referenced. There will be many data points here, but there are some to interrogate which will show how this trial breaks from the LN programme’s aims:

1. Do modal filters on Winifred's Lane unavoidably lead to increased vehicle traffic past junior schools?

2. Do they lead to vehicles going past more residences, and travelling more KMs?

3. Is there a split in opinion based on whether residents live north and west vs south and east of Winifred's Lane, suggesting rewarding one group over another?

4. Does the data lack evidence that the three linked interventions are truly linked?

5. Does the Local Plan already contain provision for two way active travel through Sion Hill campus?

This is not a marginal decision with equal views to balance. This trial should not have taken place and should have been abandoned by now. It is plainly unsafe and unfair - for any winners there are more losers, many hundreds of residents adversely and badly affected by the closure of Winifred’s Lane. There being no western main boundary road, the gradient, and location of schools meant these results were inevitable.

Please hold the decision makers to account. Whilst the council is to be commended for many traffic schemes, in the specific case of modal filters on Winifred’s Lane that should not come at the cost of councillors’ obligations towards safety, traffic circulation, schoolchildren and other groups with protected characteristics, and listening to local residents. Nor should it be blurred by hope that further changes will realise benefits later if modal filters on Winifred’s Lane remain in place or are moved elsewhere between Julian Road and Lansdown Road.

There cannot be a just decision to maintain this intervention. Re-opening Winifred's Lane is the least-worst option - safer, fairer, and still consistent with B&NES' stated aims for Liveable Neighbourhoods.

Kind regards,

The Heart of Lansdown Conservation Group