Best wishes for 2009.
For this, the second year of the website, I shall try to include more city-wide and national news. Here’s Nick Clegg’s new year message – it’s very watchable and only 3 minutes of your time!
Festive notes
As the year ends, I thought I had best mention a few recent highlights. I started this website almost one year ago with a review of 2007. While I do not intend to run through all of 2008 (yet) there are a few bits I forgot to mention during the Christmas rush.
Firstly, thanks to Rev Prothero for inviting me to give a reading at the Bathwick St Mary’s lessons and carols service. The lessons were read by a wide variety of local speakers, including myself. Rather flatteringly, I was noted as a ‘representative of the local community’ in the service programme. If you are a local community member not at the service, I represented you with the second lesson, Genesis 22:15-18.
Secondly, a resident of Clan House has kindly written to thank me for having the road surface fixed for them. This was a rather good early Christmas present as councillors don’t tend to get so many thank you notes. “Bathwick ward is exceptionally well served by you and your fellow councillor Armand.” – we do our best.
PaCT meeting
This month, the Bathwick Police and Communities Together meeting re-affirmed their commitment to the previous priorities:
– tackling speeding
– mnaging anti-social behaviour in Sydney Gardens
– getting a zebra crossing over Bathwick Hill
Although there has been improvement in all of these areas since the previous meeting, the meeting decided to retain the priorities. There were very few attendees this time, so any new priorities would have been unrepresentative of the wider area. Thank you though to those who did take the time to participate.
In the last few months, our beat manager (local policeman) has moved on and his position had been filled temporarily. Avon and Somerset Police have now appointed a new beat manager and expect him to be transferred to Bathwick in the new year.
Nocturnal use of Sydney Gardens has decreased rceently, mainly due to the cold weather. However, the police have been following a new management plan recently which sees the park patrolled a lot more frequently at its ‘busy times’ ie late evenings on Friday and Saturdays. Our PCSO and supporting officers intercept alcohol as necessary from those who should not be drinking it.
Your councillors Armand Edwards and Nicholas Coombes have been pushing for the zebra crossing over the canal bridge. Since the last meeting, BathNES council have conducted a traffic survey which prove a statistical justification for the crossing, but the Conservative administration failed to include it in the spending plan. Cllr Edwards presented our petition for the zebra crossing to the cabinet member at the last meeting of the full council.
Bathwick Police and Communities meeting
Bathwick’s next PaCT meeting is on Tuesday 16th December at 7:30pm in Bathwick St Mary’s Primary School.
PaCT meetings are hosted by the police with representatives of the council, councillors and other agencies. Residents are invited along to the public meeting to share their experiences and decide the top priorities for the area for the next six months. Priorities agreed at the last meeting were anti-social behaviour in Sydney Gardens, speeding and the need for pedestrian crossings.
Since the last meeting, Bathwick has had an interim police beat manager, with a new one due to start in the new year.
Warminster Road parking danger
Bathwick Cllr Nicholas Coombes and North East Somerset parliamentary candidate Gail Coleshill have been working together to extend the parking restrictions on the Warminster Road.
Since residents’ parking was introduced in Minster Way, communter parking has moved onto the main road. Most parking is on the North-West (MoD) side, but there are gaps in the double yellow lines on the South-East side. Parking here, between Trossach’s Drive and Minster Way, reduces carriageway width preventing lorries from passing.
Council traffic staff have now visited the site and are drawing up plans to fill in the restrictions gap on the South-East. In a compensatory measure, some spaces may be created on the North-West side. Local councillor Nicholas Coombes has urged them to press ahead with this work, following the concerns expressed by local residents. Gail Coleshill has been speaking to Bathampton residents about the problem which affects their journey into Bath.
PS – the photo is from the Summer when we first raised this. There were no parked cars then as it was mid-holiday time for most commuters!
Councillors’ surgery
Cllrs Armand Edwards and Nicholas Coombes will be hosting their next public surgery at 11am on Saturady 6th December at Bathwick St Mary’s Church Hall. Residents are welcome to pop in without an appointment between 11 and noon.
Tesco and parking
I expect that you will have noticed Tesco’s eventual arrival, opening one week ago.
I have not yet been in; since working for a small Tesco four years ago I try not to shop with them! However, I have noticed that every time I pass the shop that there are cars parked in the loading bay outisde, in the narrow part by the bridge and even on the double yellow lines on the other side of the road. As a resident I spoke to yesterday pointed out, the legal parking bays are not even full most of the time, but shoppers are choosing to park illegally to get 10m closer to the store!
I have taken a few photos of the problem which I have sent to BathNES parking services to alert them of this new hot spot. However, it will have to compete with many other locations for parking warden attention.
More worryingly though, I was phoned this morning by a woman who saw Tesco lorries double parked outisde the store; one in their bay and the second on the road, blocking the cariageway. This is really not acceptable and I urge anyone who sees this sort of behaviour to record the incident as best you can. A photograph is perfect yet impractical, so numberplates and times would be very helpful. Please pass this information to me and I will present a complaint to Tesco, the council or police as appropriate.
Zebra Crossing petition taken to council
Your local councillors have presented their petition for a zebra crossing to the Full Council. The meeting took place on the week before the Bathwick Hill Tesco opened for the first time.
The council Highways Department took over a year to paint on the loading bay needed by the shop following the government planning inspector’s ruling. The council had argued that loading at the shop would be unsafe and the loading bay remains controversial. Following objections from local residents and your Lib Dem councillors, the loading bay has been reduced in length and the road re-marked.
Cllr Edwards is still concerned though: “The new layout might just about work on paper, but real cars, lorries and buses swing across the lines risking a real accident here.”
Cllr Coombes added: “The best we can hope for is that drivers will stop to pass each other when a lorry is parked outside Tesco. What we need now though is a zebra crossing to improve pedestrian safety. This should also slow traffic over the canal bridge.”
In presenting the petition to BathNES council, Armand Edwards drew attention to the traffic and pedestrian counts, justifying a zebra crossing over Bathwick Hill at the canal. The Conservative cabinet have again failed to fund the crossing ns the next financial year until April 2010. Having first raised this with the then cabinet member in January 2007, your councillors will keep up the fight for this much needed crossing. The petition is at www.ourcampaign.org.uk/bathwickcrossing.
Tories reject rapid transit review
BathNES Conservatives refused calls for an independent review of the Transport Package which controversially includes the Newbridge bus road and Bathampton meadows Park & Ride.
The Liberal Democrats had called for a review, following the radical changes to the package and protests from residents across the city.
Increasing evidence suggests that alternatives to the Newbridge BRT have not been properly assessed. Where the package has been changed, placing a Park & Ride car park on Bathampton Meadows, residents and the parish council have been poorly consulted. Despite your Lib Dem councillors best efforts, the Tories are determined to ram the package through.
University Masterplan Response
Consultation on the University Draft Masterplan closed earlier this month, following an exhibition in the Library foyer and Bath Guildhall.
The masterplan seeks to densify the university campus to accommodate new teaching facilities and double the number of student beds on campus. Full plans are available at www.bath.ac.uk/masterplan.
Bathwick councillors have been involved in the masterplan consultation process and are broadly supportive of the proposals. However, Cllrs Coombes and Edwards do have some serious concerns about the proposed parking provision.
The plan seeks to expand the East car park along the Eastern boundary, tarmacing over the sports fields on the National Trust boundary. Tennis courts on Convocation Avenue (parallel to Beech Ave) are also to be replaced by car parks, providing 600 extra spaces.
“Such an increase in car parking cannot be justified; the University and council should concentrate on providing and promoting sustainable transport to the campus” said Bath graduate, Nicholas Coombes. “Extra spaces on campus will only serve suppressed demand and will not prevent parking on nearby residential streets.”
Armand Edwards, still studying at Bath Univesity, recognised “From a student’s perspective, more accommodation on campus is good, but the loss of sports facilities and green space must be resisted. The masterplan must also address the poor provision of social space on the campus for existing students.”