To blog or not to blog...

We started this blog a couple of weeks ago as a communication tool and have updated it regularly with manageable pieces of information.

As it has been useful for some, we wondered which Council members ran a blog or website to keep their electorate in the loop. Here are the findings:

• Timothy Ball - Liberal Democrat - Twerton
• Sharon Ball - Liberal Democrat - Westmoreland
• Cherry Beath - Liberal Democrat - Combe Down
• Sarah Bevan - Liberal Democrat - Peasedown
• Neil Butters - Liberal Democrat - Bathavon South
• Nicholas Coombes - Liberal Democrat - Bathwick
• Paul Crossley - Liberal Democrat - Southdown
• Gerard Curran - Liberal Democrat - Twerton
• Colin Darracott - Liberal Democrat - Walcot
• David Dixon - Liberal Democrat - Walcot
• Ian Gilchrist - Liberal Democrat - Widcombe
• Nathan Hartley - Liberal Democrat - Peasedown
• Lynda Hedges - Liberal Democrat - Westmoreland
• Malcolm Lees - Conservative - Weston
• Shaun McGall - Liberal Democrat - Oldfield
• Nigel Roberts - Liberal Democrat - Odd Down
• Will Sandry - Liberal Democrat - Oldfield
• David Speirs - Labour - Paulton
• Roger Symonds - Liberal Democrat - Combe Down

It is striking that this list contains only one Conservative and one Labour Councillor. We checked it out and found the Conservative link leads to a fairly standard local Conservative website and the Labour blog hasn't been updated since 2007.

As B&NES Council has a Conservative majority, surely in 2009 there should be on line comments and information from at least some of these Councillors? Then we discovered that Cllr. Francine Haeberling, Council leader, has issued a directive forbidding all Tory Councillors from running a personal blog.

You can draw your own conclusions.

P.S. The links were taken from the B&NES' website, if you know of any new additions please let us know and we will add them to the list. Thank you.

DCC Agenda - 5 August 2009

Click here to view the agenda for the next DCC meeting on Wednesday 5 August 2009.

Yakkity, yak - don't talk back!

Throughout, B&NES Council's communication with affected residents has been negligible.

We were under the impression that one of the tick boxes for a large scheme such as this was a proper consultation process. Unfortunately, this has not materialised. Officers will no doubt allude to leaflets, the public exhibition and a couple of local meetings. These have amounted to little more than propaganda exercises with dictates rather than discussions. After the so called exhibition in November 2008, 1200+ people completed the Council's questionnaires, however, despite requests for the data they contained to be made public they appear to have vanished.

There are no checks and balances in place and lack of consultation is apparently not a material consideration. Is it unreasonable to expect some form of communication explaining that 500 cars are to be parked at the bottom of the garden? Once the altered proposals (moving the planned park and ride from south of the river to north of the existing car park) were uncovered we have repeatedly invited Council officers and their consultants to meet with us. These invitations have been ignored or dismissed. Enquiries have, at best, been met with a standard reply or gone unanswered.

As previously stated, we are all in favour of reducing congestion and alleviating pollution but our city centric Council feels this does not apply to the whole of Bath. Time and time again we have asked for irrefutable evidence that this scheme is the best option for Bath - this has not been forthcoming.

Democracy? Not in our back yard!

The DCC rejected the Newbridge park and ride extension and BRT planning application on 8 July 2009. However, 'legal brains' have been wracked and there is to be another debate on Wednesday 5 August.

Many residents had planned to go away but have given up any thoughts of a summer holiday for fear of what the Council will sneak through while they are away. When the DCC reconsiders the application surely members can only confirm their previous decision and refuse to permit.

This application, along with the Bathampton Meadows proposal, is now being considered by the Government Office for the South West. Taking account of the continual deferments by the DCC alongside the incompetence of the Applicant, presumably the GoSW will consider that B&NES Council are incapable of implementing such a scheme and call it in it whatever decision is reached on 5 August. (Remember the Bath Spa fiasco?)

Residents have been told that the application will be considered on 'planning grounds' only and that the question of money is not material. Why then are Councillors being pressurized into approving the scheme without delay, and told if not passed they will lose the opportunity of obtaining central government funding?

We have had this proposal hanging over us for some two years and it is time it was put to bed once and for all. The DCC must refuse the application if they are to retain any semblance of dignity.

This date couldn't be more inconvenient for members of the public and Councillors alike. Many are away and of course it is the middle of the school holiday period. It is understood that the DCC Chairman, Cllr. Les Kew, has the authority to postpone the discussion to a later date; however, this option has not been taken up.

Yet again the electorate has been ignored and the bullying tactics of the Council have come into force. In the interests of fair play and transparency, or even as a good PR exercise, just once B&NES Council could have shown some common sense and listened.

Questions, questions?

Here are some of the questions we have put to B&NES Council over the last few months, we are still waiting for answers...

1. Why was the original site for an expanded Newbridge park and ride south of the river scrapped and moved north of the existing park and ride car park?

2. Why does the documentation submitted to the Department for Transport (DfT) show the site for the extension in a different place to that shown in the planning application? In addition, why does this documentation show 12 alternative sites for this extension yet none of them are the actual site now proposed?

3. In the grant application to the DfT there is no budget itemised for the extension to the Newbridge park and ride, why is this?

4. Why has the very real possibility of flooding on the proposed site not been taken seriously, despite advice and calculations to support this prospect from various statutory bodies and B&NES’ own consultants on this matter?

5. Why is B&NES Council ignoring all the wildlife and ecological protections put in place to protect Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, Nature Reserves etc.?

6. Why have B&NES neglected to protect and maintain the site over the last few years, thus flouting the law? A current example, allowing a group of people and heavy vehicles to live on the site, thus destroying important flora and unsettling local wildlife.

7. On the matter of public consultation regarding this proposal, this has been minimal and even when invited to ‘engage’ and ‘consult’ with directly affected residents this has been declined/ignored. How can this be considered acceptable?

8. What happened to the 1200+ completed feedback questionnaires submitted after the public exhibition in The Guildhall in November 2008? When asked B&NES’ officials are unable to answer.

9. From a security angle, why do B&NES not share affected residents and the Police’s concerns, yet state CCTV will be installed as a measure against an expected increase in crime in the Newbridge locality?

10. Why have B&NES not carried out a proper survey of current Newbridge park and ride users? If they had done so they would have found approximately 50 per cent to be commuters who live in Twerton. By doing nothing to improve Twerton residents’ public transport B&NES is contradicting its own policy to reduce traffic in Bath as these commuters have to drive to the Newbridge park and ride to get the bus into the City centre.

11. What is B&NES’ opinion on the inevitable increase in traffic congestion in the Newbridge area that will occur, if the proposed traffic lights are installed to prioritise buses entering and exiting the park and ride and crossing Newbridge Road, alongside an additional 500 cars travelling to the locality?

12. Why is Bath Council ignoring directives from Westminster and considering the use of bendy buses from the Newbridge park and ride to Bathampton?

13. Why when Bath has been highlighted as having a shortage of green spaces per capita is B&NES proposing to build on four acres of land used by numerous residents and visitors?

14. Why are there so many errors in the planning application documentation and why did it take a request under the FOI Act to provide nearly 30 missing pages from the WSP Report?

15. It is the Council's stated aim to reduce traffic congestion in the City centre, why then has it agreed to a large car park within the new Southgate development?

16. Why has B&NES ignored reports of wax cap mushrooms in the Newbridge Nature Reserve?

17. How does B&NES hope to fulfil its obligations towards protected invertebrates when it plans to chop down most of their habitat, the Poplar trees?

18. Why does B&NES plan to wipe out the Blue Carpenter bee locally with the BTP scheme when there are only 20 recorded sites in the UK?

19. Why did the local Spatial Plan pay no attention to the suburbs of Bath?

20. Why is B&NES ignoring its own planning obligations supplementary planning document in proposing this park and ride plan, in contravention of the following SEA SA objective numbers:

• 6. fear of crime
• 12. …promoting cycling….
• 14. protect and enhance local distinctiveness
• 16. protect and enhance biodiversity
• 19. encourage sustainable construction
• 21. reduce vulnerability to and manage flood risk?

Money, money, money...

B&NES Council has made a preliminary application to the Department for Transport (DfT) for the major part of the funding for the BTP.

To proceed to the next stage the Council has to have everything in place. This includes owning all the land currently under compulsory purchase order (CPO). The CPOs cover a wide spectrum from private gardens to commercial land, residential right of ways to the privately owned field that makes up half of the proposed Newbridge park and ride extension.

This will cost millions.

According to a recent report in The Times road building schemes across the UK will have to be postponed or cancelled due to Government cut backs. On 21 July 2009 it was announced that outstanding Government debt had risen to £799bn, 56.6% of UK GDP, the highest since records began in 1974. Therefore, even if B&NES Council manages to push through all the planning applications, the Secretary of State's investigations allow the BTP to progress further and the CPOs are completed there is no guarantee the DfT will make the money available.

This leaves the hard pressed Bath tax payer to foot the bill for the money spent.

Total gridlock

Newbridge residents are all for reducing the number of cars travelling into Bath, however, the current B&NES’ plan is hugely flawed and will only lead to aggravated traffic problems in the Newbridge area.

As part of the overall BTP scheme there is a proposal to double the existing Newbridge park and ride to accommodate one thousand cars on a green belt field categorised as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and a Nature Reserve.

This has led to questions about the validity of such a plan.

As part of its plans the Council intends to install new traffic lights prioritising buses entering and exiting the car park to cross Newbridge Road to join the proposed BRT in Brassmill Lane. There is already a major pinchpoint at the New Bridge; which as a listed structure is protected and cannot be altered. To encourage a further five hundred cars to enter the locality at peak times along with the new traffic lights is, at best, disingenuous. As local residents and those who travel through Newbridge are aware, traffic congestion at peak times gives rise to complete gridlock in the area which, if the extension is built, will spread to other parts of Newbridge and Weston.

Game park or car park, the £60m question...

The WSP Report identified a field to the south of the existing park and ride as suitable for a car park and in 2005 the Public Enquiry Inspector recognised that 900 car spaces could be accommodated on that field. It is incomprehensible that neither B&NES Council nor the Consultant Planning Officer brought in to supervise this application, has realised it.

Furthermore, the land proposed for the park and ride extension is a Nature Reserve. Given there is a relatively low grade field (in biodiversity terms) to the south it is not permissible under planning rules to approve an application to develop a park and ride on a Nature Reserve.

The Council has failed to comprehend the damage a car park would do to the Nature Reserve. It would render the whole Newbridge Slopes Nature Reserve unviable due to fragmentation, resulting in significant loss of locally, regionally and nationally important species which are but indicators of the value of the site.

The Applicant’s interpretation of the impact of the destruction of this range of habitats is fraudulent and these issues have been lodged with the Regional Office.

Mitigation versus biodiversity damage - all consultees agree this will be inadequate and irrelevant.

DCC meeting update

To read the draft minutes from the DCC meeting on 8 July 2009, click here.

Park and ride users?

B&NES Council has not published survey results as to who uses the Newbridge park and ride. We can only conclude they have not carried out this fundamental background research.

Local residents, however, have conducted enquiries into this area. It was found that approximately 50% of park and ride users were commuters from the Twerton area (south west Bath). By simply improving the Twerton bus service, rush hour traffic would be reduced considerably and there would be no need to enlarge the car park.

A substantial number of car park users take advantage of free parking, without using the park and ride bus; they fish, use the nearby cycle track to Bristol and engage in other leisure pursuits. Another major group are local residents as the park and ride bus is significantly cheaper than the regular bus service.

Improving the existing bus service would encourage more people to use public transport, this in turn, would ease congestion in line with the Council’s stated aims.

End result = happy commuters, residents and environment.

To help us collect more information please complete the poll on the right. Thank you.

Water, water everywhere ...

The planning application for the extension of the Newbridge park and ride includes statements from B&NES Council's consultants specifically referring to the fact that the area is likely to flood, causing flood water to flow over the existing car park and onto the A4 Newbridge Road.

The surface water from this proposed development is intended to be discharged into an existing surface water sewer controlled by Wessex Water Authority (WWA), and, in order to protect their interests they have placed a restriction of 6 litres per second on the rate of discharge to their sewer; far less than the expected run off from the site.

Calculations have shown that the measures proposed to accommodate the excess surface water are inadequate and that the site will flood causing irreparable damage to the remaining part of the Nature Conservation Area and a danger to road traffic and pedestrians using the A4 Newbridge Road.

Mary Dhonau, OBE, Chief Executive Officer of the National Flood Forum, has stated that inadequate surface water drainage arrangements for the new development will threaten the park and ride itself and increase the risk of flooding to others. In addition, Ms Dhonau feels that this proposal is sadly lacking in this regard with the expected run off being greater than the volume and peak flow rates prior to the proposed development.

It is quite clear that even if flooding of this site was the only consideration, the construction of this car park should not proceed.

Smoke and mirrors

All the way through we have asked Bath Council and their consultants to provide feasibility studies into alternatives to back up their claims that the proposal to extend the current Newbridge park and ride was the best solution.

It took a request under the Freedom of Information Act to get any answers. We were directed to a report compiled by the Council's consultants WSP. Approximately thirty pages and a number of plans were missing. After yet more correspondence the full document was finally made available. It appears that twelve alternative sites were considered in the decision process.

None of the sites considered covered the location put forward in the planning application.

This means that none of the substantiating evidence; surveys, inspections and reports; is relevant. Furthermore, the proposed site has not undergone the required investigations.

Can this be acceptable?

Background information

In 2005 the proposals for the Bath Transportation Package (BTP) from Bath and North East Somerset Council (B&NES) were for an east-west city route. Why anyone would want to travel from one car park to another is a mystery; naturally most people want to go into the City centre. The plan then was for an electric tram type arrangement with an expanded Newbridge park and ride south of the river with the existing car park to be used as overspill parking for the hospital, alongside three other park and rides around Bath.

In the intervening years this scheme has changed drastically.

The local paper, the Bath Chronicle, ran an on line survey in November 2008 to gauge opinion on the proposals. They received the largest number of votes ever with 81% against the BTP.

The BTP is now made up of four planning applications:

1. An extended park and ride in Lansdown (north Bath)
2. An extended park and ride in Odd Down (south Bath)
3. A newly created park and ride in Bathampton (east Bath)
4. A two lane road with cycle track and footpath, known as the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) and extended park and ride in Newbridge (west Bath).

The planning applications were submitted at the end of January 2009 by B&NES to themselves. There were thousands of objections from local businesses, residents and statutory consultees.

On 20 May 2009 the planning committee (Development Control Committee - DCC) met to consider the applications. It was explained that as the Council was applying to itself for planning permission there could be no appeal if the application was rejected.

The committee approved the first three and deferred the Newbridge section. This was not without controversy as shortly afterwards five Councillors submitted an official complaint that the voting was not democratic and the Secretary of State announced the BRT was under consideration for a public inquiry. The Secretary of State's involvement means that the DCC cannot permit or reject the application it can only show that it is minded to permit or refuse it.

The deferred meeting took place on 8 July 2009. After four and a half hours the DCC voted to refuse the motion that they were minded to permit the application. There were then frantic whisperings and discussions between the Council's legal representative and the Chairman, as well as between members of the committee, and another vote was deemed necessary on the reasons for refusing the motion. Apparently, the belief that this part of the BTP would not meet its targets was not sufficient. This resulted in a tie as one of the Councillors and the Chairman abstained. Seemingly, a third vote followed on a deferral, which was carried.

What a shambles!

This is the official version of what happened:

• application to permit planning (1st vote) : refused
• reasons for refusal (2nd vote) : tied
• deferral on the reasons for referral (3rd vote) : carried

However, the Council are arguing that the deferral refers to the whole application and not just the reasons for refusal, basically overturning the first vote.

We are still in limbo.

Welcome...

For many months we have been campaigning to save Newbridge Meadows from Bath Council's concrete mixer.

While everyone is in favour of reducing traffic congestion implementing an unworkable, ill thought through scheme which will achieve the opposite is not the answer.

We are fortunate to live in a beautiful area with the surrounding fields protected by numerous environmental policies. Unfortunately, this is irrelevant to those who have been employed to represent and 'serve' the residents of Bath as they appear to only have eyes for the millions of Government funding. Instead of consulting with local residents and substantiating their proposals they are bulldozing through dramatically altered plans without a nod to their electorate.

However, we are fighting back and will not let this go through without a spirited defence on behalf of the people of Bath.