HoLCG FOI Requests

It has been a while since we have sent out an update from the HoLCG but a lot has been going on behind the scenes.

The HoLCG submitted a number of FOI requests to get more information from the Council on the background to the decision to install a speed hump and other interventions on Sion Road, north of Sion Hill Place.

These FOI requests and the Council's responses were as follows:

1. Please produce all documents, correspondents, emails related to safety audits, safety data, and traffic flow data and analysis that were part of the decision making process to put forward this TRO (TRO 26-018 Sion Road).

The Council responded with several documents that were already in the public domain as part of the consultation, but the Council also produced a Road Safety Audit report (see here). The date on this document is 8/9/2026 which is after the consultation period concluded and shortly before the TRO was finalised on 14/9/2026.

The auditors visited the site on 7/9/2026 and all these dates are well after the FOI request date of 17/08/2026.

Section 2.6 of the report deals with risk of head-on collisions and recommends that the Council 'Remove the centre line from the proposal'. The report did not consider any collision data after 2024, so did not include the time period of the ETRO trial or the period thereafter. Collisions around the Sion Hill Place bends have been recorded during this period.

2. Please supply all traffic monitoring data collected for Sion Road and Sion Hill in Lansdown for the period May 2025 to September 2026.

The Council responded to say that no traffic monitoring data was collected during this period. Therefore the latest available data was from the ETRO trial which showed no increase in Southbound traffic on Sion Road once Winifred's Lane was closed, but an increase of over 1000 vehicles a day Northbound on Sion Road.

3. This FOI request relates to TRO 26-018 (Sion Road Bath) and to the associated drawing TCL0060.01 dated April 2026 that was placed into the public domain in August 2026.

a. Please produce all emails and documents that gave, or included, instructions to Council officers to produce drawing TCL0060.01.

b. Please produce all emails and documents that include a review of drawing TCL0060.01.

See drawing TCL0060.01 here. It was sent to local residents and put onto the Council website, but then removed saying that it has been published in error. As well as the speed hump it shows other interventions including a narrowing of Sion Road around the Sion Hill Place bends.

The response from the Council does not directly address the questions but did include an email (see here) dated 24/2/2026 which does give some background information to the Sion Road intervention.

Since the centre line has been put in and the road narrowed on Sion Road damage has occurred to retaining walls around Sion Hill Place.

You may find the Council's responses to our FOIs somewhat surprising.