Elections

Today I’ve submitted my nomination papers to seek re-election as one of Bathwick’s councillors.

Armand Edwards and I were first elected to B&NES Council in 2007; in doing so we became the first ever Liberal Democrats to represent Bathwick ward. After four years of service to the community, Armand has decided to stand down at this election. He will shortly be completing his Masters degree, then moving on for employment elsewhere.

Dr David Martin is the other Liberal Democrat candidate for Bathwick ward. I’m pleased to be standing with him; I think that he would make an excellent councillor for our patch. He lives with his wife near the University and works as a consultant on sustainable energy research and development. He is also a governor at Bathwick St. Mary’s Primary School and a committee member of the Claverton Down community association. He has already been meeting people across Bathwick and has petitioned the council to extend the 30mph limit on Claverton Down Road and for a safer crossing on the Warminster Road. David’s campaigns already make up a significant part of this website!

I am proud of our record in Bathwick, but we don’t doubt that this year’s election will be tough. In 2007 Armand and I won by fewer than 100 votes. However, as the 200 posts on this website testify, we have been busy since then. The Bathwick Hill zebra crossing, Sham Castle clean up, University neighbours’ forum and city’s first street recycling bins are evidence of the difference that the Liberal Democrats make.

The election is on Thursday 5th May; alongside the referendum for a fairer voting system. Expect to hear a lot more from Armand, David and I.

Transport plan – stubborn Conservatives throw another £11M at the BRT

On Thursday the full council debated the Joint Local Transport Plan. While this is a 130 page document with nine supplementary documents still to come, all of the attention is on one thing.

Even the report acknowledges that the main method for delivering the transport improvements are ten major projects across the greater Bristol region, worth £600M. The problem is that none of them have been given government funding. Only one is in BathNES – the Bath Package, of Park & Rides, bus roads and bus stop improvements. The coalition government has told B&NES to think again and come back when the scheme is better value for money and has greater local support.

The Conservatives running B&NES re-submitted their plan in secret last December, but it took me until this week to find out what they had proposed on our behalf. They had made cuts – they propose to remove bus lanes from the A36 and A4 and also to cut back on bus stop improvements and information screens. This is supposed to save £7.9M, but on my analysis there’s a lot more ‘value engineering’ necessary and more cuts to come to reach £7.9M. Unfortunately their cuts are of useful and popular elements which would really make a difference to bus reliability and patronage.

There is one obvious cut – the £20M proposed to spend on the bus road through businesses and back gardens in Newbridge. This route is universally unpopular, absurdly expensive and absolutely useless. The 1 mile route is a parallel alternative to the uncongested Upper Bristol Road. Even the bid document says that it will not reduce congestion or pollution and will save no more than one minute on the bus journey time. It is supposed to join with the Western Riverside development, but this won’t be finished for another 30 years – until then the bus route would actually be longer than currently. However, the Conservative Council leadership refuse to consider removing it.

To fund their obsession with this bus road, B&NES taxpayers are to be billed £18M. This covers the £8.7M of our money already spent on the project – including three attempts to bully my planning committee, lawyers fees to defend legal challenges from B&NES residents and a public enquiry to compulsarily purchase residents’ back gardens. Another £9.1M has is to be offered to make the remaining plan more attractive for central government funding.

At the council meeting it is becoming obvious that the Conservatives are driving our council to an ‘all or nothing’ condition. Again and again they have blocked debate on this issue, most recently refusing a proposal of cross party co-operation in November. There are alternatives and it’s not too late to change the Bath Package – the final bid isn’t until the Autumn. However, through their own stubborness and mismanagement the Conservatives are putting the whole package at risk.

Bath needs a transport solution but what is on offer from the Conservatives is expensive and ineffective.

B&NES Masterplan

With the coalition government devolving more power to local people, B&NES Council has been able to revise its growth plan. The Labour government had insisted on thousands of extra houses which would need to have been built on the edge of the city. The council has changed its ‘Core Strategy’ document to reflect local needs, but it is still not perfect.

Cllr Nicholas Coombes said “Council has passed this plan for public consultation before it is signed off. I am pleased with the overall direction of the strategy, but there are some key details which need to be looked at again. I shall be responding to the consultation and urge interested residents to do likewise.”

You can access the consultation online here ; there is a lot of reading and less than a month to go.

Unallocated allotments

Fifty people on the waiting list for a plot at the Canal Garden allotments will be pleased to know that there are five vacancies.

Unfortunately the plots have been unused for up to three years and are very overgrown. Inexplicably, the council still has not allocated them to new users. Neighbouring plot holders, the chair of the association and I have all written to the BathNES allotment department to point this out, but have not recieved a reply.

While the waiting lists grow, the five Canal Garden plots overgrow. Aside from those frustrated on the waiting list, this also disadvantages nearby gardeners to whose patches the weeds are likely to spread.

I shall continue digging at the problem.

Changing Lives

BathNES council has produced a ‘changing lives’ website detailing the social services available improve people’s quality of lives. Says the council:

“A new webpage was recently placed on the Council website that provides a much different and very personal way of raising public awareness of the services the Council provides and how residents can access those services quickly and conveniently.

“The webpage tells the real-life stories of people – told by the people themselves to video camera – whose lives have been changed by the Council and the local organisations we work with. Many of those stories focus on people who have been in a vulnerable situation, like a domestic violence victim, a man who was homeless, and a man who was unemployed, amongst others, and how they have obtained help. The videos provide information about how to get in contact if they, or someone they know, are in a similar position or if they want to know more about how to access the broader range of services the Council provides.

“Please have a look at the videos on: www.bathnes.gov.uk/changinglives

“Since all councillors have an important part to play in raising public awareness of the services we offer, I hope you can encourage your residents to access the webpage and add the link to your personal blogs and social media sites if you have them.”

While I am doing my bit with this public service announcement, I note that someone forgot to link the ‘changing lives’ page from either the council homepage or the A-Z section. I’ll let them know.

Lime Grove for sale

Lime Grove special school is now on the open market. If you want to buy it, the details are here (but there agents don’t reveal the price!).

This is perhaps the best proof available that the council have given up plans to continue using the site, including as a possible location for a wet-house. Last week when I met the Conservative cabinet member responsible in a council corridor, he confirmed that there were no plans for a wet-house, or even an experimental wet-house, on the site. He protested that a recent Chronicle article had misrepresented his plans.

However, with the history of secrecy surrounding previous plans for the site, many residents remain concerned and do not trust the Conservative cabinet on this matter.

Expenses to be published

The expenses of all councillors are published on the BathNES website. This year’s are due out soon and will show that I didn’t claim anything this year (except the regular ‘allowance’ or wage). This is because I am able to walk to nearly all of the meetings and forgot to claim travel money for the occassional trip to Keynsham.

The list of meeting attendence shows that I attended all five of the full council meetings and twelve of the monthly planning committee meetings. I also acted as a substitute for three Regulatory & Access meetings and one each of Corporate Audit and Enterprise & Economic Developement Overview and Scrutiny.

Winter continues

The ‘Big Freeze Update’ from the council is abridged below for public information purposes. Whether the ‘big’ refers to the length of the update or the severity of the freeze is not made clear.

it is cold and will remain such for some considerable time; it has and will snow, road and pavement conditions are described as extremely hazardous
grit was delivered to the council on Friday; it will be used sparingly on major routes and in grit bins, not on residential roads or pavements as per this map
most schools will be open on Monday, though Bathwick St Mary’s is currently unsure; updates on the council website
there will be no waste collections on Monday; none was collected on Wednesday, Thursday or Friday so this should be brought back indoors. The Christmas trees left in the street are quite festive though

Footpath width confirmed

A government inspector has ruled that the footpath from Claverton Down to Combe Down is legally 5m wide.

This confirms the case made by local residents and the council, that footpath AQ78 is a historic vehicle track over which the public has full access. The Inspector concludes:

“the right of way subsists over the full width of the way between the [historic] boundaries.”

When I sat on the council’s footpath committee I proposed that the footpath be recorded at this full width, resulting in the public enquiry to determine this. At the public enquiry the evidence was presented fairly, but overwhelmingly showed that the footpath should be between 5 and 7m wide.

This is great news for Bathwick and Claverton; I look forward to the wooden fence being taken down.

Committee controversy

In light of this week’s Chronicle I thought I’d better write a little about Development Control Committee, or ‘planning’.

Normally I try to keep this blog to mostly interesting local news items, with occasional mention mentions of council meetings – the Regulatory (Access) Committee is as fun as it sounds. To test this , I have set up a running poll to the left hand side of this page, just below the links. Kindly vote for ‘more’ or fewer’ committee stories, so that I don’t waste anyone’s time with long meeting minutes in the future.

However, last month’s planning meeting has spilt considerably into the news realm, with accusations of coersion, dishonesty and impropriety over the park and ride applications.

I voted to support two park and ride proposals, at Lansdown and Odd Down (although I am quite proud to have voted against this at a previous meeting). However, I could not support the third – an application to concrete over the river-side meadow at Bathampton for a 1,400 space car park (yes, I do know the Joni Mitchell song; by apparent co-incidence I returned home after the seven hour planning meeting to hear Big Yellow Taxi on the sterio). Given the level of congestion on the London Road and suppressed demand, the traffic report showed that the scheme would allow 1,400 extra car drivers into the city centre, without any reduction in congestion or pollution. This I assessed as particularly small gain, far outweighed by the huge inherent cost of paving an alluvial meadow in such an idyllic spot.

However, others did not agree with me, indeed two Liberal Democrats voted for the scheme, demonstrating an entirely split party vote. However, all six of the Conservative panel members backed the Conservative Cabinet’s scheme. Quasi-judicial committees such as planning should not operate a party whip system. It is entirely possible that the Conservative members, all being men of similar ages and backgrounds, chose by chance to vote in the same manner. I trust that this will be investigated by the standards board in course. However, the Liberal Democrats do not operate a party whip system on planning, or indeed any other meeting. At council meetings, we tend to vote together because we agree with each other!

The Newbridge Park and Ride and associated bus road application was not determined by the planning committee. Instead, the committee deferred the application as it felt that not enough evidence had been provided to support the scheme. Certainly, I felt the the transport justification was insubstantial, and voted to wait until more information was provided.

A government minister has now suspended the planning application while he decides whether to let the council decide it, or whether he will send it to a government inspector to decide. If it does come back to BathNES, it will come before my committee again, so at this point -to avoid impropriety – I should stop typing.

Bathwick Liberal Democrats

Cllr David Martin, Claire Jackson & Cllr Nicholas Coombes