School’s concern over route for active travel

A Bath school has said the proposed North Road active travel scheme could “impact the safety” of pupils, staff, cyclists and pedestrians.

King Edward’s has said it supports sustainable initiatives but fears the North Road proposal could increase traffic in nearby neighbourhoods.

B&NES Council is having consultations about three active travel routes that may see cycle lanes and footpaths implemented across the city.

One is North Road, inset, which would connect the city to the University of Bath using cycle lanes and other measures with the intention of making it more bike and pedestrian-friendly.

The proposals have already caused a debate in the city.

King Edward’s is the latest organisation to raise concerns. It said it was “disappointed” that council representatives had not visited the school in person prior to the scheme being published.

It also said such a visit would have cleared up “misunderstandings” about the road layout and traffic flows associated with the school.

The council said in a statement it had visited the school twice in the past week to see the traffic and that it consulted virtually with the school in January and changed initial plans after fears raised then.

The school had written a letter to parents this week making them aware of the consultation and to raise their concerns with its current form.

A spokesperson for King Edward’s said: “We have always been keen to support sustainable travel initiatives and have, for example, invested heavily in our extensive coach service and in our facilities for those staff and pupils wishing to cycle to the school.

“Indeed, we are proud that an increasing number of staff and pupils are choosing to come to school by foot, bike or coach and the fact that all our coaches are now Clean Air Zone compliant.

“Whilst in principle we are supportive of the council’s work to promote sustainable travel, we have a number of concerns about the potential impacts of the proposed scheme for North Road.

“As currently designed, we believe that aspects of the scheme could impact the safety not only of our pupils and staff crossing North Road, but all cyclists and pedestrians who use North Road as part of their journey, including those accessing the University, Ralph Allen School and Bathwick St Mary Church School.

The statement added: “The resulting change in traffic flows and density are likely to have a significant impact on our local residents in North Road, Cleveland Walk and Bathwick Hill.

“We recently wrote to our parents to make them aware of the public consultation which is currently being run by the council. In this letter to parents we noted specific aspects of the scheme over which we have concerns. “In addition, we noted that we were disappointed that council representatives had not taken the opportunity to visit the school prior to the final scheme being published and the current consultation going live.

“We believe that such a visit to the school to meet with us on location was vital to enable the council to see first-hand the potential impact of the proposed scheme on the safety of all road users - pedestrians, cyclists and drivers alike - as it was evident from previous conversations with the council that there were misunderstandings about the road layout and traffic flows associated with the school.

“Unfortunately, such a site visit did not take place before the proposed scheme was published and the public consultation launched on February 22, 2021. Our first meeting at the school with council representatives was on Thursday March 11.”

Bath and North East Somerset Councillor Joanna Wright, joint cabinet member for transport services, said: “We met virtually with King Edward School in January before our consultation began and amended our proposals at that early stage according to the school’s concerns. We also met with the school twice within the last week to listen to their concerns and look at the circumstances at key drop-off and pick-up times, to ascertain the situation at first hand.

“We only had a matter of weeks between the fund criteria being announced by the Government and the deadline for bid submissions, which meant it was not possible to run a public consultation ahead of submitting our funding bid. The purpose of the consultation is to listen to people’s concerns and take any issues into account.”

The deadline for submitting views on the proposed active travel schemes to the consultation was March 21.