TRANSPORT

"WE WANT OUR VILLAGE STREET BACK!"— A PROPOSAL FOR WIDCOMBE

Introduced by Don Lovell, Convener, on 12 January 1999

The Widcombe Association have been campaigning for over 20 years for Rossiter Rd to be made a two-way by-pass so that through traffic could be banned from Claverton Street, which could then resume its status as the village shopping street.

During 1998, the Association obtained the assistance of the Dept. of Civil Engineering of the University and also of Buro Happold, the international engineering design consultancy, who have their offices locally. Together, a proposal was drawn up for submission to the local Council.

The plans and arguments for carrying out the proposed scheme were exhibited and explained by the speaker, together with the history of previous attempts to get the Council to carry out this change.

The speaker was able to report that earlier in the day the Transportation sub-committee of the Council had received the proposal and agreed to instruct the Officers to investigate it further.

During the discussion it was agreed that the proposal was becoming more necessary as the re-development of Southgate and the alterations to the traffic flow in the City centre will divert even more vehicles through the Widcombe area in future. The speaker suggested that other areas around the centre of Bath could prepare a scheme for their problems (which would be different to those of Widcombe) but was advised not to be so generous, since if any did so it might conflict with the progress of the Widcombe scheme.

Don Lovell