Council insists LTN will be monitored after safety warning

Bath and North East Somerset Council has assured people it will monitor “potential impacts” of changes to a junction being installed today (November 6) after an independent report published last night raised safety concerns.

The council is closing Winifred’s Lane at the top of Cavendish Road in Bath to through traffic as part of its programme of liveable neighbourhoods, which are also called “low traffic neighbourhoods” or LTNs. But a report by consultants SLR, commissioned by locals opposed to the plan, was published yesterday (November 5) warning that visibility at the junction would be “insufficient to be safe.”

Now a top councillor has insisted the scheme will be monitored and urged people to share their views on how it is working once it is in place.

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The council's cabinet member for highways, Manda Rigby, said: “Any potential impacts of the Lower Lansdown experimental schemes will be monitored and all information and data will be considered when a decision is made on whether the schemes should be modified, removed or made permanent.

“We encourage everyone to take part in the consultation which runs until April 30 next year, please go onto our website at bathnes.gov.uk/lansdownetro to have your say.”

Steep and narrow Winifred’s Lane has been a one-way street going north, up the hill, which the council warned was being used as a rat run for traffic going from the south of Bath to the A46, A420, and M4. The council’s plans will see bollards installed on the road, located north of the driveway of Holywell House.

But this means vehicles accessing the house would have to drive southwards out of the narrow high-walled lane onto the junction. The SLR report — commissioned by the Heart of Lansdown Conservation Group, who previously brought a legal challenge against the liveable neighbourhood — warned this would create highway safety risks for cyclists and for the three homes on the lane.

The report warned that visibility for vehicles driving south out of Winifred’s Lane was “insufficient to be safe.” It added: “Vehicles engaged onto Winifred’s Lane by mistake do not have the possibility to U-turn forcing them to reverse into the Cavendish Road junction.”

The report added that cyclists heading south down the steep lane could also be at risk due to a lack of visibility for cars leaving Holywell House’s driveway, and increased stopping distances for bicycles going down the very steep hill. Under the experimental traffic regulation order (ETRO) process, the scheme would be in place on a trial basis for six months while a public consultation takes place.

The report stated: “The outcome of the ETRO process is a binary decision: to remove the temporary scheme or to make it permanent. Given the lack of local support, and the lack of any framework to support decision making, and the issues raised in this report on highway safety, detrimental impact on access to Holywell House, and potential environmental impact on highly sensitive locations, the only logical outcome of the proposed ETRO has to be the removal of the temporary scheme.

“In such a context, there is little point in carrying forward with the ETRO.”

A spokesperson for the Heart of Lansdown Conservation Group said yesterday: “We support liveable neighbourhoods generally and they can be helpful to local areas, but this one is a fundamentally unsafe traffic scheme — and today we have the proof of it from an independent traffic consultant.

“We have been saying to the council for almost a year how unsafe the proposed [experimental traffic regulation order] is. This dangerous scheme will send more cars past more people, past junior schools with children being walked to school, and into lower socio-economic areas. It will create so called active travel up and down a hill steeper than any in the Tour de France [..] and it will send traffic, both frontways and in reverse, into poor visibility road junctions and lanes with blind bends and pedestrian crossings.”

Liveable neighbourhoods are intended to stop speeding and rat running on residential areas and create safe and pleasant spaces for walking and cycling. The Winifred’s Lane scheme is the third part of a larger liveable neighbourhood scheme covering lower Lansdown and the Circus area.

This also includes collapsible bollards to restrict through traffic on Catharine Place, which were installed on Friday November 1, and a major overhaul of how Gay Street works — where work was scheduled for November 4 and 5.

The work on Winifred’s Lane is taking place today (November 6).