HoLCG representatives meet with Councillors Rigby & Hirst

On Wednesday (Oct 29th) evening  representatives of the HoLCG (Rich Brown, Julian Gooding, & Ian Wilson) attended a meeting with Councillors Manda Rigby and Joel Hirst, Cathryn Brown (Senior Programme B&NES), and Chris Major (Director of Place Management B&NES).

Representatives form other residents' groups also attended - the Sion Hill/Summerhill Road Residents' Association, the Sion Hill Place Residents' Association, the Royal Crescent Society, and the Marlborough Lane/Marlborough Buildings Residents' Association.

The Council had positioned this meeting as a final opportunity to give direct feedback to the decision makers on the future of the Lower Lansdown ETROs before final decisions are made. Interestingly the 'Single Member Cabinet Decision' is actually to be made by two Cabinet Members, Cllrs Rigby and Hirst.

 The HoLCG, Sion Hill/Summerhill Road RA & Sion Hill Place RA representatives all considered the Winifred's Lane ETRO to be a failure. The Marlborough Lane/Marlborough Buildings RA representatives were very concerned that the modal filter on Gay Street has resulted in significantly more traffic on their roads.

The reasons given to the Cllrs Rigby and Hirst for considering the Winfred's Lane ETRO to be a failure were:

• Very significant displacement of traffic

• Multiple safety issues.

• Flaws in due process leading up to the implementation of the ETRO.

Our own data, compiled by an independent well recognised consultancy, taken during the trial period shows a very significant increase in traffic along Sion Hill and on Sion Road around Sion Hill Place. There are also increases in traffic along Julian Road and Morford Street.

Safety has been compromised in multiple places - more traffic on the dangerous bends past Sion Hill Place; more traffic at the dangerous Morford Street/Lansdown Road junction; danger to cyclists going down Winifred's Lane at the Somerset Lane and Cavendish Road junctions; a significant increase in traffic past junior schools.

You can see video clips that show a number of safety incidents here.

Prior to the Winifred's Lane ETRO being put in place we believe that B&NES showed bias in community engagement by preferentially consulting only with supportive Residents' Associations within the affected areas.

When B&NES applied to WECA for funding to support the Liveable Neighbourhoods programme it claimed 'alignment' with LTN 1/20 regarding the implementation of a cycleway along Winifred's Lane. LTN 1/20 is government guidance for local authorities implementing cycle infrastructure. It sets limits on the gradient for a cycleway which the 16% gradient of Winifred's Lane far exceeds. Hence B&NES would appear to have made a false statement in their application to WECA.

Prior to the Winifred's Lan ETRO implementation B&NES ignored an independent safety audit by SLR consulting which highlighted many of the safety issues that have now manifested themselves.

All the above points were raised with Cllrs Rigby and Hirst. Their response was that they were at the meeting to listen, but would include the comments that they heard in their decision making. They indicated that decions could be made within the next 28 days.

The HoLCG will be considering a number of courses of action to take depending on the outcome of any decision.

Meanwhile feel free to email Cllrs Rigby and Hirst with your current views on these experiments. Their emails are - Cllr Rigby Manda_Rigby@BATHNES.GOV.UK & Cllr Hirst Joel_Hirst@BATHNES.GOV.UK.

Do circulate this email to other interested parties.