Decision day as BRT comes to Planning Committee

The B&NES planning committee will meet this afternoon to decide on the Council’s planning applications for the Bath Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) route.

Local residents campaigning against the plans have been supported by Bath opposition Councillors representing the wards through which the BRT would run. The committee will meet at the Guildhall at 2 p.m. and dozens of residents are registered to speak.

It is clear that this is the wrong route for the rapid transit bus route, which will divide a community in two, by what has been described by residents as a “Berlin Wall”.

With the loss of the green space on which the BRT will be built, children will have no choice but to negotiate an extremely dangerous road to access the nearest park to play.

All this is being planned while there are perfectly acceptable alternative routes which the Council has still not considered properly. Nor has sufficient research been carried out into tackling the real causes of congestion such as the school run.

As a result local children will be deprived of valuable open space; local people will be subjected to the constant noise and inconvenience of an extra road with intrusive CCTV cameras and increased security concerns. The proposed BRT route must not go ahead.

The committee only have to review the number and wide range of the objections to accept that the BRT scheme as presented is ill thought out and is not weighed against researched alternatives.

There is no evidence to support the claim that this scheme will reduce congestion and pollution. In fact residents along the BRT route will be subjected to increased levels of vehicle noise and pollution and busses will still arrive at the bottle neck at Windsor Bridge and will not realise any ‘journey time saving’.

Residents east of Station Road will either be subject to compulsory purchase or as the report says ‘an unacceptable loss of privacy’.

The Planning Committee should be aware that the BRT is just another road and has no restrictions to access set out within the conditions. It will be a green light to joy-riders.

Full Council – May 2009

On Thursday we had a meeting of the Full Council (ie, all 65 councillors). These are now quite rare under the Conservatives so there is generally an exciting (and long) agenda. This was also our AGM so we elected a new council chair and made changes to our panels and committees.

Cllr McGall has moved from the Corporate Audit Committee and will now sit of the quasi-judicial panel: Regulatory (Access) Committee. Cllr Sandry is staying on the Healthier Communities and Older People Overview & Scrutiny Panel. Clrr McGall also sits on Avon Fire Authority.

On Thursday night, council had two named votes. Ordinarily, votes are taken by show of hands with only the numbers recorded. However, councillors can request a named vote be taken for the public record.

The first vote was after a debate about licensing a casino in Bath; a similar proposal was passed in principal last year. Now with applicants in mind, the cabinet brought the controversial plans back to council. A free vote was held in whcih both Cllr McGall and Cllr Sandry voted infavour. We believe that responsible adults should be free to spend their money as they see fit, and that politicians ought not interfere. This was an unusually and genuinely interesting debate with a close result. The casino licence was granted.

The second named vote was altogether more odd. Bristol Airport wants to expand and is preparing a planning application to its local authority, North Somerset. The Liberal Democrats of Bristol City council recently passed a motion questioning the justificaion for expansion on both economic and environmental grounds. BathNES council has a similar motion on record from a few years ago, but the Lib Dems wanted to strengthen it. With the airport causing as much global warming as all the traffic in Bristol, the environmental cost of short haul air travel is obvious. However, less clear is the economic cost. Recent surveys by the South West regional assembly reveals that most business does not want or use a regional airport like Bristol. The airport is used mainly for tourists – leaving the UK. With convenience and cheap fares, British people spending weekends away are taking their money out of the UK, hurting tourism jobs. It should be fairly obvious that there are more Bristolians who holiday in rural Spain and Portugal, than Iberian farmers who take their holidays in Bristol. However, this section of the Liberal Democrat motion was deleted and exchanged by one praising the job creation potential of the airport expansion. The Conservative who proposed this not only sits on the Bristol airport consultation panel, but his ward is the most blighted by airport traffic and noise! With the motion thus wrecked, we were forced to vote against.

WASTE DAY CHANGE: Find out your new day online

You can find out now when your new waste collection day will be from the 8th June 2009. The Council has put information on its website about the new collection days through its new ‘My House’ information facility.

By typing in your postcode, residents can find out what new day of the week all their waste collections will be and register for regular alerts detailing other local information, like street works, planning applications, community facilities, and changes to Council services. Residents can log-on to www.bathnes.gov.uk/myhouse to find out more.

Further information about the changes is available now through various leaflets. This includes guidance on how people should put out their waste so it’s clear for the collection crews and other frequently asked questions. However, households will also be issued with a letter in the week commencing 25th May 2009 confirming which their new day will be from 8th June. Residents can also call Council Connect on 01225 394041 to find out their new day.

From the 8th June 2009, households across the district will put out their refuse, the green recycling box, and cardboard and garden waste on the same day – although the cardboard and garden waste will be collected every fortnight.

The Council is asking residents to put out their waste by 7am on the right day every week and to check which week their cardboard and garden waste will be collected as this may have changed from current arrangements. Collection times on each street will be different to what people are used to at the moment so its important waste is put out early so as not to miss the collection.

The Council is undertaking the change in direct response to residents who want a more convenient waste collection service and the need to meet the Council’s key priority of addressing the causes and effects of climate change.

Tories give Blue Light to Bristol Airport Expansion

Liberal Democrat Councillors were tonight forced to vote against their own motion when a wrecking amendment was tabled by the ruling Conservative Group. The amendment was also supported by Labour and independent Councillors.

The Lib Dem motion was to have clearly shown the Council’s opposition to expansion on environmental, economic and congestion grounds.

This disgraceful Conservative amendment reversed our motion to such an extent that we were forced to vote against it. Our position was clearly stated in the original motion. We believe unfettered airport expansion to be incompatible with efforts to reduce CO2 emissions, we are concerned about increases in traffic – especially in rural areas, noise and that the economic and jobs benefits have been overstated.

We can only conclude that the Conservatives decided to table this wrecking amendment because they are in favour of airport expansion with the resulting increase in air pollution, noise pollution and congestion on our roads.

It seems that it is only the Lib Dems who are concerned about climate change. The Tories and Labour in B&NES have endorsed unlimited airport expansion.

Attempted burglary on Sladebrook Avenue

Between 8 and 9.20pm on Wednesday May the 13th unknown person(s) have forced entry to a residence. The offender(s) came through the rear garden and have removed the lower UPVC panel from the rear door. The house alarm was activated and they have then fled the scene.

If you have any information regarding this incident, please contact the Police on 0845 456 7000. Alternatively you could contact Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555111.

Mayor sings praises of race

A reception was held this week to acknowledge the contribution to city life made by the Bath Half Marathon.

The event was hosted by the Mayor of Bath, Cllr Tim Ball, who after starting this year’s race went on to run it with his wife Sharon. Tim and Sharon together with me have so far raised more than £6,000 for the Mayor of Bath’s Relief Fund, which helps local people facing hardship. I managed to run the race in 2hrs 18mins 33sec.

The money will be part of a total of around £1.2 million expected to be raised by this year’s 11,000 runners for charity.

Cllr Ball said:

To start the race and then run the half marathon was one of the highlights of my year – even though it nearly killed me and the mayoress.

The Bath Half Marathon brings the community together, promotes fitness and raises money for charity. It is a healthy event in every sense of the word.

Race director Andrew Taylor, from Running High Events, thanked Cllr Ball for hosting the reception, which was attended by representatives of organisations who ensure the race can go ahead – including FirstBus, Girlguiding UK, Bath and North East Somerset Council – as well as the main race charity, the Forever Friends Appeal.

He said of the civic duo:

They are an inspiration to everyone who doesn’t come from a running background, and a wonderful example of how this event has grown from simply an elite race for club athletes into a community event raising fitness across the whole city.

The date for next year’s race has been provisionally set for Sunday, March 21 and entries will go live on the website www.bathhalf.co.uk in July.

Burglary on Cedar Grove

Between 2pm and 9.45pm on Saturday 9th May, unknown person/s have gained entry to a dwelling via an insecure ground floor window, and removed property from within.

If you have any information regarding this incident, please contact the Police on 0845 456 7000. Alternatively you could contact Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555111.

Crime falling in Bath and North East Somerset

We have received the following letter from the top Police Officer in Bath and North East Somerset, Chief Superintendent Gary Davies:

He states that, “At the beginning of April our new crime year started and whilst it is an opportunity to look back on the success of the previous year it is also a time to set out the priorities and expectations for the following year.

It remains difficult to interpret the economic situation and its affect on crime. A reasonable rise in shoplifting toward the latter part of the year has not moved into other crime areas. The first month of the new crime year has seen a 6.5% reduction in total crime compared to April last year and we will work hard to sustain this reduction. Some excellent work in the last few weeks by my Officers who work in our Priority Crime Team saw the arrest of one young man for vehicle crime and he has subsequently admitted over 70 other vehicle crime related offences. Likewise some further tenacious work over a significant period of time has led to another man admitting he was responsible for 12 house burglaries in our area. Two excellent results.

Appropriately we have been reviewing our plans to cope with the likely impact of the pandemic flu virus. A significant amount of preparation was put into place/practice to prepare for the possibility of bird flu. Much of this work has been easily transferable and, therefore, puts us in a ready state to respond accordingly, albeit it sounds as if the first phase of flu is proving to be less impactive than first thought.

I have asked a small team of my staff, assisted by Council staff, to review our approach to PACT (Partners and Community Together) and the PACT meetings. The meaningful successes in some areas are not as obvious in others and the numbers attending vary considerable across the area. It is equally important that we have the capacity to sustain multi agency attendance. Local people having influence over local service delivery is essential and we must ensure we retain that key principle as we find the best way forward.
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