Locals call for end to controversial Bath traffic scheme

People on a Bath road have taken to the streets to call for traffic restrictions on their road to be scrapped.

Wooden planters were installed on Southlands in Bath in November 2022 as one of Bath and North East Somerset Council’s trial liveable neighbourhoods — also known as low traffic neighbourhoods, or LTNS — with the intention of preventing rat running and making it “safe and pleasant” for walkers and cyclists. But locals say the road has never been a rat run and have urged the council to drop the scheme as it is set to make a decision on whether to make it permanent.

Marie John was among the Southlanders who took part in a protest at the weekend calling for the planters to go. She said the main problem had always been people parking on the road for the nearby Royal United Hospital (RUH) and that the planters only had benefited one side of the street. She said: “If I could pick my house up and move it along down there, I’d be happy. But on this side of the planters it’s made things worse.”

Anita Burford, who lives right by the planters, said she now had to live with the glare of headlights coming in her bedroom window at night as cars turned around. She said: “They say its a rat run, but we’ve lived here 60 years and its never been a rat run.”

Speaking about the protest at the weekend, Ms John said: “We had a lot of support on the high street, with a lot of people beeping their horns.”

Graham Pristo, who stood as a Conservative candidate for the area in the local elections in May opposed to the scheme, was also at the protest. He said: “It really doesn’t do what the council want it to do. There was not a problem with a lot of traffic going up and down the road.”

He added: “The government [Transport Secretary] Mark Harper has stated that if the residents don’t want the LTNs, they shouldn’t proceed.”

A verge on Southlands that has been substantially driven over

A consultation by the council found that 57 per cent of people on the street who responded to the survey are opposed to the scheme, while 40 per cent are in support and three per cent said they did not know. But one local who supports the scheme, Guy Hodgson, said he did not think these figures or the protestors really represented the roughly 400 people who live on the street, and that he would estimate from conversations with people on the street that it was generally supported by 75 per cent of people. Mr Hodgson said: “A lot of people value the peace and quiet and safety.

The council’s two other trial schemes on Church Road on the other side of Bath and Queen Charlton Lane near Whitchurch both received a much higher level of public support, with 75 per cent of people living on Church Road backing the scheme and all but one of the people on Queen Charlton Lane supporting the measures there. Mr Pristo said the other schemes were “a totally different ball game.”

Acknowledging the opposition to the Southlands scheme, a council statement said “several of the reasons for opposing the trial were not borne out in practice,” citing the council’s monitoring reports which found traffic on Weston High Street had reduced by 3-4 per cent after the scheme was enacted — a figure disputed by locals who say traffic has increased.

A decision on whether to make the scheme permanent will be made as a single member decision by council cabinet member for transport Manda Rigby. Publishing the consultation report, Ms Rigby said: “The trials are the outcome of significant consultation with communities as part of our liveable neighbourhoods programme and I look forward to considering the outcomes presented in these reports before a decision is made on whether to make these trials permanent under formal traffic regulation orders.”