Playing games with lives and funding

The council has stated that, by 2030, we need to reduce road miles driven by 25 per cent, of which only 10 per cent can be from fossil fuels. Given that 60 per cent of journeys are under five miles but only account for 20 per cent of road miles driven, there is a clear need for the council to deliver a good walking, wheeling, and cycling network across the city and beyond and get as many people (and businesses) walking, wheeling, cycling, and using public transport.

Despite the criticism aimed at the West of England Combined Authority (Weca) that it was not moving fast enough on climate change by Councillor Kevin Guy, the council had been given £560,000 by Weca and the Department of Transport (DFT) to begin implementing this vital safe cycle network to help tackle climate change and enable people to make the choice to cycle or wheel.

The two publicly consulted (and approved!) schemes that the council chose to go forward with now fall foul of the funding rules which require them to be delivered and not be weakened.

Upper Bristol Road was a simple, effective, exemplary scheme that has been over-complicated and, after local political interference, now creates a more dangerous space for a child to cycle than leaving the road as it is today and greater cost.

The North Road trial has been filibustered by a weak cabinet unable to make decisions for itself and coming up with the “brilliant” idea of using a Citizen’s Jury to absolve all responsibility and blame 24 “randomly” chosen residents to make the decision for them. I’d never seen a cabinet effectively vote a vote of no confidence on themselves before without realising it.

However, the Government is extremely serious about getting councils to deliver good cycle infrastructure and has stated that failure to deliver and/or weaken schemes within the funding windows will result in general reductions in DFT funding. That failure to deliver the tiny, inconsequential North Road 12-month trial and to insist that “vital” parking takes precedence over children’s safety on Upper Bristol Road is going to result in the council having no money to repair potholes in Radstock or Keynsham.

The enormous changes in terms of the pandemic and the much more critical climate emergency are playing out in real time while this new politically weak cabinet plays games with children’s lives and your pothole money.

If this wasn’t bad enough, the council is likely to be tested again this year with another £1.5 million of Active Travel schemes. Given the new cabinet’s political resolve so far to do the right thing, I think we can safely be assured that the state of our roads will get worse and worse over the coming years while Councillor Richard Samuel continues to blame central Government for lack of funds while completely ignoring the behaviour of his fellow cabinet members.

The sad thing about all of this is that this council should be bidding for Bath to become one of the 12 £30m mini-holland cities but the reality is that their current performance on delivering Active Travel schemes will exclude them.

This is an enormous amount of money that this new cabinet is prepared to turn its back on and all because they refuse to run a 12-month trial road closure within the timescales set by the Government.

Adam Reynolds Timsbury