Agenda item

The BBSC (Bristol to Bath Strategic Corridor) seeks to improve travel between Bath and Bristol through better bus services, improvements to bus infrastructure, and develop facilities to enable more cycling and walking services and along the A4 route, as well as to the A4 route from neighbouring communities.

We want to provide better and more sustainable transport to help people move around more easily, reduce congestion, lower carbon emissions and improve the environment we live in.

The Strategic Outline Case (SOC) establishes the potential scope of the transport proposal. This sets out the rationale for intervention (the case for change) and confirms how the investment will further our priorities and wider government ambitions (the strategic fit) to determine the ‘preferred way forward’.

Councillor Sarah Warren introduced the report and made the following statement:

“The A4 Bristol Bath corridor serves a population of 117,000 with around 13,000 trips made along the corridor each day. At the moment, the mode share of these made by car is 54%, increasing to a whopping 77% of commuters to Bristol or Bath along the route, with just 7% of all trips by bike, and 9% by bus. Population along the corridor is forecast to increase, and if nothing is done, mode share by car is forecast to rise still further, with the greatest increase arising from trips of less than 5km. Corresponding congestion costs are forecast to increase to £800m per year by 2036.

At present, there is very limited bus priority, and very little safe, segregated cycle provision on the route, which results in a vicious cycle. Buses stuck in traffic travel slowly with unpredictable journey times, cycling amongst the traffic feels too dangerous for many, there are few methods to get to the A4 that don’t involve a car. Whilst there is a fast rail connection, it can only be accessed at Keynsham. So, people are understandably very much in the habit of picking up their car keys.

The impacts of this car-dominated environment are many. The route currently suffers from severe congestion, with associated financial cost of wasted time and fuel, increased car mileage as people divert around it, air pollution, noise, and car-dominated communities that don’t always feel like the pleasantest of environments to walk around. As part of our climate emergency declaration, we know we need to achieve a reduction in mileage of 25% per person per year, and this is a vital transition to make for public health reasons as well. So, we need to make the shift from a vicious to a virtuous cycle.

The overarching objective of this project, funded through the West of England Combined Authority’s City Region Sustainable Transport Fund, is to create a high quality segregated and prioritised mass transport, cycling and walking corridor that will provide for reliable services, to encourage people to use sustainable transport modes for short and mid-distance journeys, and contribute to tackling the climate emergency through modal shift. We also plan to improve sustainable modes of getting to the A4, with interchanges between transport modes along the route. Our underlying purpose is to improve people’s lives through addressing the climate emergency, improving public health, and tackling transport poverty.

Our aspiration is for a fast, segregated zero-emission, turn-up-and-go, 5-minute bus service between Bristol and Bath, as well as a continuous, safe, segregated cycle route.  This will create a vital step-change in the standard of sustainable transport connections between the two major cities of the West of England. A first round of public engagement was carried out this autumn, so we already have information about residents’ views. Further engagement will take place in early 2022.

We welcome government’s commitment to sustainable transport through the provision of the City Region Sustainable Transport Fund, and other funds, over the last two years. However, government’s stated ambition in this area sits at odds with the cliff edge in regular bus service funding that companies are facing in April, as the covid support grant provided to companies by government is based on the assumption that passenger numbers, currently stuck at 70% of pre-covid totals, would have risen to 90% by now. It’s a shame that government will not acknowledge this gap, and that communities, encouraged by government publicity to hope for improvements in mass transport provision, may instead be faced with dramatic cuts to services in the short term. I very much hope that government will quickly rethink this illogicality.

Cabinet is asked to note that the West of England Joint Committee will be asked on 28th January to delegate authority to Chief Executives to progress to Outline Business Case for this important project, the Bristol Bath Strategic Corridor. I whole-heartedly support the proposal”.

Councillor Sarah Warren moved the recommendations.

Councillor Manda Rigby seconded the motion by acknowledging the outstanding work done by Councillor Warren and the officers. She stated that the scheme aims to achieve many outcomes and there is a long way to go but this is a positive start.

Councillor Richard Samuel made the following statement:

“I welcome this initiative by the WECA to improve the flow of public service vehicles between the main urban centres of Bath and Bristol together with other ancillary improvements for walking and cycling. The devil of course will be in the detail and how the competing demands for road space will be managed. It will be essential to work closely with residents and businesses along the route and in this regard, I welcome the work undertaken by the Mayor to involve residents at an early stage. It is clear from the responses set out at para 10.5 that there is plenty to do”.

RESOLVED (unanimously) to recommend that the Cabinet on 16^th December 2021:

1.1  Note that WECA Joint Committee on 28^th January 2022 will be asked to delegate authority to approve the Strategic Outline Case to Chief Executives on 17^th February 2022 for progression to Outline Business Case.

1.2  Note early public engagement will be carried out Spring/Summer 2022 if the Strategic Outline Case is approved.