No ring road plans, says transport boss

Radical plans to shake up transport in Bath to cut carbon emissions do not include building a ring road around the city centre, a top officer has confirmed.

Principal transport planner Nick Simons offered the clarity after eyebrows were raised by a comparison with the largely flat Belgian city of Ghent, which has a ring road and a tram network.

Traffic accounts for a third of emissions and he said Bath and North East Somerset Council needed to act fast to hit its target of making the district net zero by 2030.

Measures revealed last week include dividing the city centre into four “cells” and limiting traffic flow between them, reallocating road space for walking and cycling with segregated bike lanes, the rollout of the next generation of liveable neighbourhoods and work to allow schoolchildren to travel independently.

Speaking on a webinar on the council’s journey to net zero consultation, Mr Simons said the traffic cells proposals were only at an early stage and modelling would assess the impact on the wider network, including the development of a circulation plan.

“There are no proposals to start building new roads or a ring road. Ghent is a different city,” he said. “We did draw that comparison but it wasn’t our intention to draw a direct comparison. It was more about what could be achieved if you put certain schemes in place.

“The journey to net zero is a package of measures.

“It’s not just about restricting traffic in our city centre. It’s about making cycling routes better, making pedestrian environments better, improving buses, potentially a mass transit scheme, liveable neighbourhoods making it nice to cycle and walk.

“Traffic cells are a longer term scheme. We’re looking to create a lot more capacity on the roads by removing traffic. At the moment 50,000 vehicles start and end within Bath.

“If we can get those off the road and people walking and cycling in the city by making those modes more attractive it frees up road space so traffic can go round the city and not have to travel into it.”

The proposals were developed in response to a consultation last year that attracted fewer than 1,000 responses and showed support for better public transport with integrated ticketing, upgrading the city’s park and rides, and better cycling and walking infrastructure.

Asked by a resident how the council would balance green issues against the “inevitable damage” to the tourism economy, Mr Simons said: “We’re probably damaging our economy quite significantly with the amount of cars in the city centre.

“We have a significant number of tourists who say ‘isn’t Bath such a lovely place, what a shame about the traffic.’ It’s a comment we always get from visitors.”

Cllr Sarah Warren, cabinet member for sustainable travel, said: “There are European cities that have already been down this road. Amsterdam and Copenhagen in the 1970s were as heaving with congestion as Bath now is.

“I don’t think we would say that moving to greener forms of transport has damaged their tourist economy.”

Mr Simons said an “unprecedented” level of funding was available to improve the network for everyone’s benefit, adding: “We can expect more bus facilities, new walking and cycling routes, better maintained roads, more joined-up working between us and Weca.”

The council’s £129m share of a £540m transport settlement was due to be signed off by cabinet yesterday (January 26).

❝ A significant number of tourists say ‘isn’t Bath such a lovely place, what a shame about the traffic’. Transport planner Nick Simons