We should have say on this experiment

We are among a number of residents groups that are deeply frustrated and dismayed about the council’s glaringly inadequate public consultation process on the Beckford Road/north Road Active Travel proposal.

Consultation is online, so most of our older residents are digitally excluded. There have been no group consultations with residents.

A webinar was held but there was only time for a handful of questions - mostly pre-selected. Hundreds of people attended. Answers were vague. This practice is discriminatory and flies in the face of the Lib Dems’ Manifesto to “make sure the council gives local people a bigger say.” (2019).

It is acknowledged that deadlines for proposals for funding and for final details have been tight.

There has been no evidence presented that supports the selection of this route, and no impact assessment to justify the decision, in spite of the Lib Dems’ pledge to carry out such processes. The Beckford Road/north Road plan is justified as an experiment.

Whereas we fully support the principle of active travel, the council needs to think through how and where this money is spent, and listen to the residents most affected. We need our say. It is likely that emissions will increase for us, and active travel will be more difficult.

B&NES’ proposal to effectively

take traffic from a rural road, where there is no evidence of congestion, pollution or safety concerns, and put it onto highly residential roads contradicts their own pledge (September 2019) to “reduce the impact of cars on residential streets through better traffic management and reductions in ‘rat-running.’”

From our calculations, traffic on these roads will increase. Shouldn’t we have had our say on this expensive ‘experiment’ some time ago? Chrissie Harrington

For and on behalf of (New) Sydney Place Action Group