Western Daily Press (Saturday)
Transport hub vision for park and ride facilities
THE green belt could be redrawn to transform Bath’s park and ride sites into solar-powered transport interchanges with better walking and cycling connections.
Bath and North East Somerset Council officers set out a new vision for the facilities in Odd Down, Newbridge and Lansdown as stepping stones between the city and the rest of north east Somerset.
Officers claim the benefits of removing the sites from the green belt would outweigh the harm but Bath Preservation Trust has warned the move could spark a development “free-for-all”.
Transport manager, Claire Cornelius, told scrutiny panel members this week: “What we hope to achieve is a true transport interchange, not just to intercept people who want to come into our city. It’s to get people who want to explore the countryside out of the city as well.
“Rather than it just being somewhere you park your car and get on a bus, our vision was that you come out of the city to it and there would be electric bikes for hire, electric cars for hire, really nice, wide segregated walking and cycling routes to our market towns that don’t necessarily run along the A roads.
“We’re looking at how we might integrate them with the Bristol to Bath strategic corridor work through Metrobus Plus and really make it a hub.”
She said there would be showers and lockers – in the form of bespoke buildings where bikes could be safely stored. People could cycle to the hubs and catch the bus to the city, or drive there and cycle or walk to the city.
“We can offer a range of transport options to people. We can integrate it with light rail, rail, our normal public transport,” she added.
Richard Daone, the council’s deputy head of planning policy, said: “It’s a case of demonstrating that the harm to the green belt would be outweighed by the sustainability and other benefits of what’s being proposed. If we keep the buildings to a relatively low intensity the harm is relatively limited. We feel we’ve got a good case to make that there are those exceptional circumstances.
“In allocating them for development we would enable some solar energy generation – as long as it’s compatible with the primary role as transport interchanges. That could provide electricity to charge the electric vehicles.”
He said ecological surveys were being carried out to make sure the interchanges did not harm habitats.
The council has consulted on also creating household recycling facilities on land south of the Odd Down site when Midland Road closes for redevelopment, and suggested Lansdown and Newbridge could serve the same purpose. Another proposal is using the park and ride sites for social uses like farmers’ markets, cafes, pop-up venues and festivals.
In its consultation response, the Bath Preservation Trust said: “We strongly oppose the removal of the park and rides from green belt as we consider this could lead to ‘free-for-all’ development on these sites, at the gateways to the city.
“We acknowledge and support the emphasis on multimodal/transmodal function of the sites.
“We support the use of sites for carefully designed and landscape harm-mitigated solar generation in some cases, and consider there is a missed opportunity for small-scale recycling facilities.
“We do not believe these developments would be incompatible with green belt status.
“However, park and ride locations should not be destination sites. We are concerned that other uses, such as farmers’ markets, cafes, venues and festivals would detract from the vitality and vibrancy of town centres and encourage increased car journeys.”