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.
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