Camden Road Bus Gate Opposition Letter

We Won

Update on the London Road and Snow Hill Liveable Neighbourhood area

 You can read Cllr Kevin Guys letter here 

But in short the closing of Camden Rd is off the table for the foreseeable future

Thankyou all for your support, This shows what happens when a community pulls together

But be sure we will be ready for what ever comes next, A liveable Neighbourhood is a neighbourhood for

EVERYONE

As you may know, B&NES council plans to install a bus gate on Camden Road, which will cause severe problems for residents, and cause very high congestion levels in large parts of Bath. A map of the proposed plan given to residents by the ward councilor is presented at the end of this page.

Members of our community have written a detailed Objections letter setting out our concerns, which you can read below. It is several pages long and highly specific to ensure that Councillors are held to account properly, and are aware of the legal and safety issues involved if they choose to proceed. 

If you are a Bath resident and would like to add your name to this letter, please read it by clicking SHOW MORE and then click Sign this Petition at the bottom of the screen.

Then click  Yes, I have signed this petition on the email confirmation you will receive. PLEASE CHECK YOUR SPAM FOLDERS IF YOU DON'T RECEIVE THE EMAIL.

Dear Councillors

We are writing to object to recently announced plans for a Camden Road bus gate, as part of the Liveable Neighbourhood (LN) initiative. An LN is intended to make an area more pleasant and to encourage active travel. A bus gate will achieve the very opposite. 

Camden Road serves as a crucial access route for thousands of B&NES residents, including 12,000 people living in the Lambridge and Walcot wards, and over 14,000 registered patients of Fairfield Park Health Centre (FPHC). A bus gate would restrict access to essential services and divert traffic to completely unsuitable, very steep and narrow streets, making them extremely unsafe. It would also deter active travel by creating a more hazardous environment for walking and cycling. 

The plans raise serious legal, ethical, practical and safety concerns, and have drawn significant opposition from residents, with over 3,000 people signing a petition opposing them in a matter of days. No Residents Associations support a bus gate either. 

Our objections are based on many critical concerns and are not limited to those below:

1. Procedural Irregularities

The proposed bus gate has been added to the LN programme without proper public consultation or Cabinet approval. Its addition falls outside the scope of the formally approved "small-scale" scheme for Walcot, which was limited to "London Road, Snow Hill, Kensington Gardens, and adjacent roads". It represents a significant expansion of the LN, in terms of cost and impact. We are concerned that Due Process has not been followed:

• A wider Walcot scheme involving Camden Road was explicitly rejected in June 2021 due to the complex challenges it would create in terms of traffic displacement

• Co-design workshops focused on London Road and Snow Hill, with a small number of participants proposing a "modal filter" for Snow Hill, and in the future, possible modal filters for Camden Road and Eastbourne Avenue to limit through traffic

• Even though a modal filter for Camden Road was outside the scope of the Snow Hill & London Road LN, it was inexplicably included in the Exhibition of September 2022 that set out plans for the area

• Exhibition attendees were invited to vote for their favourite measures - out of over 60 submissions, there were only 8 votes for a Camden Road modal filter, and only 5 votes for the proposal to block off Snow Hill, whereas other measures scored highly; this illustrates clearly that these were not popular proposals even amongst the small minority of residents consulted

• No public consultations have ever mentioned a "bus gate" so it is unclear why this was included in the Full Business Case (FBC) B&NES created to apply for a WECA grant for the LN scheme

• Aside from the bus gate inclusion, there are additional concerns about the FBC, including road safety issues, disclosure that an LN was being legally challenged, and calculations used to determine Benefit Cost Ratios

• B&NES is using Experimental Traffic Regulation Orders (ETROs) to trial LNs; Department for Transport (DfT) guidelines stipulate  that public consultations should happen prior to design creation and that ETROs should not be used to impose unpopular schemes

• Councillors have been informed by the LN team that “hard measures” involving road closures are required for LNs and grant funding, but this is not what DfT guidelines state, and several Bath LNs do not have them

The DfT has warned Councils that flouting their regulations, which require full transparency and public engagement, could risk future funding. Councils misusing CRSTS funding also face being audited and having grants revoked. 

2. Redirection of Traffic & Delivery Issues

The stated aim of the bus gate is to divert traffic from Camden Road to 'main roads', primarily London Road. However, the only way to achieve this is for drivers to take roads much narrower and steeper instead.

Moreover, most vehicles using Camden Road are headed to or from the West and North so if a bus gate is installed, drivers will need to go via Paragon / Vineyards, Lansdown Road and the historic core of Bath. These roads are densely residential, much more so than Camden Road, and increasing congestion in the central area would contravene B&NES's Journey to Net Zero plan.  

The Leader of the Council is on record stating that he is committed to ensuring that no design pushes traffic into another residential area, but a bus gate would do exactly that:

• Fairfield Park residents will face significant disruption as their primary access route into town and the hospital is closed off, resulting in traffic being displaced to smaller, steeper streets for both northbound and southbound traffic

• Larkhall traffic will head up the hill along small streets to reach the North and West, turning the whole of Fairfield Park into a gridlocked “rat run”

• Lower Camden streets will suffer the same fate, as vehicles from London Road try to access Camden Road via Snow Hill and Bennett’s Lane, because the wider and safer route of Eastbourne Avenue will no longer provide access

• Even Camden Road residents will be negatively affected as traffic jams will occur if vehicles u-turn at the bus gate, or traffic backs up from side roads 

With a frequently cancelled bus service and an extremely limited route, and taxis almost certainly avoiding the area if this plan proceeds, residents without cars will often be unable to leave or reach home without experiencing difficulties, particularly if they are disabled.

Increased congestion will further negatively impact bus services and delay or prevent deliveries to the health centre, local businesses, and homes. If these plans proceed and if such delays occur as seems inevitable, the Council will need to hold a Public Enquiry.
 

3. Health and Safety Concerns

A bus gate would create serious health and safety issues: 

• Higher Accident Risks: 

• London Road, a serious accident hotspot unlike Camden Road, will experience higher levels of traffic jams, leading to a greater likelihood of collisions – drivers stuck waiting to cross London Road will inevitably take more risks if they experience delays

• Redirecting thousands of vehicles onto some of the steepest and narrowest streets in Bath, with gradients ill-suited to even low levels of traffic, risks serious harm as drivers of larger vehicles may need to mount pavements or even reverse onto main roads to clear jams

• Higher traffic on steep residential streets increases the risk of accidents involving pedestrians and cyclists, particularly as fixing poor pavements and lighting is not being planned

• In icy conditions cars often skid down very steep roads like Frankley Building, Bennett’s Lane, and Richmond Heights; increasing traffic on these roads in winter will increase the frequency of these incidents significantly

• Air pollution levels will rise due to increased congestion:

• Unlike Camden Road, which has good air quality, parts of Walcot are nearing legal limits for air pollution; if thousands more vehicles use the road daily, these limits are likely to be exceeded quickly

• Pollution will also rise significantly on small residential streets where houses are close to the road

• Emergency Services: these services could face delays due to traffic jams, and larger vehicles may get stuck or be unable to navigate new, sharp turns

• Medical Centre Access Issues: the FPHC has voiced its strong opposition to a bus gate, due to access becoming more problematic for staff and patients

• Hospital Access: the RUH serves over 500,000 patients annually, many from outside Bath; increasing congestion on London Road and preventing access via Camden Road could cause those needing emergency treatment to face life-threatening delays
  
  

4. Value for Money & Budgetary Transparency

B&NES is facing a budget crisis yet continues to spend an excessive amount on the LN initiative, while slashing funding for bus services that need subsidies: 

• B&NES has already spent over £1.8m on LNs - mostly on consultancy fees - and nearly £50,000 on legal fees alone

• B&NES has budgeted over £2.5m for LNs from Council funds, with more required for maintenance; costs have spiralled since 2021

• Since January 2024 trial costs have been excessive - such as £300,000 for the trial for New Sydney Place - with B&NES providing a proportion in match funding 

• If legal challenges succeed or trials fail, B&NES may need to return grant funding already spent to WECA, risking a substantial budget shortfall and cuts to essential services

• The approval of a WECA grant does not mean this money has to be spent on a bus gate - spending money on schemes that are objectively unsound would constitute a misuse of public money

Our community supports reducing car travel, pollution, and congestion, and increasing active travel and public transport use. A bus gate achieves none of these aims but will negatively affect thousands of Bath residents, cutting close communities in two with an invisible wall, for no credible benefit. These measures will worsen the daily lives and health of the very community the LN was supposed to help - the more disadvantaged residents of Snow Hill and London Road. The plans are nonsensical, inequitable and put the public at risk. 

Council officers and elected officials have a legal duty to ensure that Due Process is properly followed for Council Decisions. Cabinet should properly assess contentious plans that affect two or more wards, as these plans clearly do. Ultimately, Cabinet, not an individual councillor, is in control and responsible for the Decisions the Council makes. 

We therefore urgently request a meeting with those legally accountable for the Walcot LN, including the CEO, CFO, Monitoring Officer, Council Leader, Councillors making LN Decisions, and the Councillors of the immediately affected wards of Walcot, Lambridge, and Lansdown.

Yours faithfully

***LETTER ENDS***

Stop the Bus Gate    Contact the author of the petition