More Pearls from the Link (and a conspiracy theory)

(or...  Why have the figures been drastically changed ?)

There've been some changes made.   Back in 2009, when all the intensive work was being done, consultants Mott MacDonald came up with figures for the likely traffic impacts of the South Bristol Link.

Among all the stats, it was revealed that the road would draw enough traffic onto the new alignment to push up the numbers at both ends.  At Brunel Way, as it passes Bower Ashton, another 6,000 vehicles a day would funnel in with the 35,000 that pack it now;  along Hengrove Way/Airport Road, there'd be an extra 5,000 on top of the 16,500 that we see today.   Frightening, but not really surprising.

Meanwhile, advised Mott MacDonald's experts, the Bus Rapid Transit (sorry, I must learn to call it 'Metrobus') would carry 3,000 people a day along the leg of its journey between Hartcliffe and the A38.

But that was in the olden days.   Planning Committees reading the latest reports will find the goal posts have been adjusted and traffic projections rounded right down – and not directly comparable because daily figures aren't given, only the hourly peak and the 'interpeak average'.   So on Brunel Way, the new road is now claimed to have no significant effect on traffic levels approaching the Cumberland Basin in the morning rush.   Back at Hengrove, the planning committee will be told, morning peak traffic will actually drop (!) once the same road becomes a new ring route through South Bristol.

Just as the traffic numbers are now being played down, it turns out that the SBL Metrobus (you know, the one that's going to be good enough to get people out of their cars) will also carry far less passengers – certainly a tiny number compared with the forecasts on which the scheme was developed.  This link (figs 7-12) shows that for most of the running hours, and much of the route, throughout the 15 year study, hourly passenger numbers won't even reach double figures, let alone the 3,000 a day plus on which the whole SBL project was sold.

Conspiracy or cock-up?   It needed high passenger figures to justify the scheme in the first place.  With that out of the way, and funding secured, low passenger figures can justify dropping the expensive, uneconomic bus element of BRT altogether, leaving just the highway, a new ring road, and a stimulus for developing the Green Belt.  Job done.

Of course, I made that last bit up.   It couldn't possibly be true.  After all, we're going to be European Green Capital.

Badgers and Bikes

For years, badgers have been digging and enlarging their sett on the 'Whitchurch Way' cycle path with a multitude of entrances either side of the tarmac. Now the path has collapsed into one of the interlinking tunnels.

The city council, quite properly, won't fix the path till they get advice about protecting the badgers.  Down the road in Somerset, though, they're preparing to shoot the creatures, healthy or not, in a (probably ineffective) attempt to reduce the incidence of bovine TB in cattle. There's a good dispassionate summary of the issue in this Science Media Centre briefing

Apart from cattle and badgers, the disease can also be carried and transmitted by deer, horses, cats and dogs.  Bikes too, for all I know.  All of them frequent this stretch of the path, which has direct links into dairy and beef farms. 

So doesn't the logic of the cull suggest that dogs, cats, horses and cyclists should be shot too?

Pearls from the Link

The mass of documents published as part of the planning application to build the South Bristol Link must baffle most of us who want to submit an informed comment. And every day it's being added to with more letters of support or objection. I've just put my own objection in; they're still being accepted.

To ease the burden, the links below are for the key 'Transport Assessment', which is part of the Environment Assessment and unhelpfully scattered in bits randomly around the official documents list.

Part 1 (there's an index in this one – after that you're on your own)

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

Especially illuminating are the predicted peak hour traffic flows – demonstrating, for instance, that once the road-builders have gone, residents of quiet, leafy King Georges Road will get over a thousand vehicles passing through in the morning rush. Not to mention those three (yes, THREE) passengers shared between half a dozen spanking new Metrobuses.

Still, every cloud..... Over at Barrow Gurney, they already get a thousand vehicles through in the morning peak, so they're naturally very keen to see the new road built. As one resident says,

"Villages like Barrow Gurney have been severely damaged with both the buildings and the community smashed by increasing traffic levels. In places the carriageway is only 14 feet wide with stone walls and no pavement but cars expect to be able to pass each other irrespective of any villagers trying to access village amenities such as the pub, village hall, playground and shop as well as visit friends. It is an attractive village with most of the houses in the centre listed but this narrow winding road carries around 15,000 cars a day, every day with no respite at weekends and bank holidays. The children and old people in the village need to be able to walk in safety but cars make no concession for pedestrians. The last village appraisal revealed that 15% of residents had been struck by cars in the village centre so it is not surprising that 85% of villagers felt unsafe walking in the village. Such a situation is unacceptable.”

The SBL predictions suggest that the traffic along Barrow Lane will be halved when the new link opens. Only a partial solution, then - maybe only 7.5% of residents will be struck by cars.   Still, there's at least one of the offending drivers who's conscience stricken - and looks forward to a clearer run. He writes:

“I write as a North Somerset resident, as a chartered civil engineer and transport planner, and as Chairman of Bristol Chamber of Commerce's Transport Group, which I represent on the Mayor of Bristol's Transport Advisers Panel.

I moved to Bristol in 1984. At the time, the construction of the road that is now known as the South Bristol Link was part of the strategic plan for the area. I believed then, and continue to believe, that the construction of the road will be of major benefit, both by improving access to the communities in South Bristol and by providing a bypass to remove through traffic from Barrow Gurney.

I moved to Wrington in 1987. Since then, for 23 of the intervening years, I have commuted to Bristol via the A38, through Barrow Gurney and along the Long Ashton Bypass. Despite peak period hold ups in Barrow Gurney, this is the quickest route between home and work and takes my journey past fewer homes than any other option, meaning that my commute causes the least nuisance to others. That same route is preferred for many journeys between Bristol Airport and Bristol. Consequently, with increased air travel, it has become steadily busier and the traffic on it must cause significant harm to the quality of life of residents in Barrow Gurney.

I wish to express my wholehearted support for the scheme both because of my self interest, in that it will improve my journey to work, and because it will provide so many wider benefits for North Somerset and south Bristol.”

Now there's a saint! Wherever would we be without transport planners like this?

Fortnum & Mason comes to Stockwood

An advance party spotted this morning.

They've settled on a site on Hencliffe Road.

Question is, are we on the way up, or are they on the way down?

They're bringing in stocks already.

Click here for the video

Angst at Ingst

I've never been to Olveston. Streetview tells me it's nice but unremarkable.  Without a car, it's a tricky place to get to and from. Occasionally a bus passes through the village during the working day, headed for Cribbs Causeway or Yate, but it's not the sort of service you'd rely on for anything beyond a carefully planned trip to the shops; anything more needs a help from a journey-planner or a travel agent. Naturally, most of Olveston's residents will have to depend on a car or three to lead anything like a normal, 21^st century life. It's quite nicely placed for that... not far from Almondsbury, Severn Bridge, and the M48/M4 junction.

The village expanded hugely in the sixties, so now something over 2,000 people live there. And they face a common foe in the shape of REG windpower.

A couple of Cornish wind turbines ruining the view

REG windpower plan to bring the village to its knees by erecting two wind turbines over the other side of the motorways, at the hamlet of Ingst.

I'm not exaggerating. I've read a few of the objections to the planning application.

The curate takes the view that village children won't be able to concentrate at school, and would be better off with a nuclear reactor for a neighbour.

The owners of a local 'country park' business fear their car-borne customers will be frightened off from their £7 a pop 'uncommercialised' park if a couple of turbines are visible, causing redundancies all round.

Helpfully, a UKIP councillor explains the background.... it's all thanks to European regulation plus the Tory ruling classes, who are “using turbines to generate themselves and their friends huge amounts of money at the expense of the tax payer and the poor people and animals that have to suffer these monstrosities “.

Of course there are also some in that neighbourhood brave (or foolhardy) enough to declare themselves in favour of the turbines, by adding their comments to the planning application. Their addresses are in the application papers. We know where they live.

Meanwhile, the applicants are shamelessly promising that they'll put substantial cash into the local community if the scheme goes ahead. Not only that, but the turbines, once up and running, will be offered to the Bristol Energy Co-operative, if they can raise the finance through a community share offer. Community ownership, in fact. Or creeping socialism.

There's no date yet for the South Glos. planning meeting, and they do still seem to be accepting comments from the public. Mindful that the tip of the turbine blades may be visible from this side of the city, Stockwood Pete has just chipped in with his own two-penn'orth.

Green Belt wars: a developing front.

Around Long Ashton the developers, enthused by the prospect of the South Bristol Link Road, are lining up to challenge the green belt, and to make a quick fortune in the process.

Over on this side, around Stockwood and Whitchurch village, BaNES planners are also facing relentless bids to overturn the policies that protect the open space.

The attempt by developer Robert Hitchins to put close on 300 houses (and negligible supporting infrastructure) to fill the remaining gap between the two settlements has become a war of attrition. Twice the application has gone in; twice it's been refused, because it breaks all the agreed land-use planning priorities. On the first refusal, Hitchins started an appeal and then backed off. Now they're again going to Pickles and his inspectorate to complain that they've been badly treated.

You have to wonder what might have been said to make them think it's worth it.

Just across Stockwood Lane, you'd expect the neighbours at the rescue charity HorseWorld to value their green belt asset – that's why they're there. But for one reason or another (and the Bristolian offers his explanation here), they're having a hard time balancing the books .

Horseworld's Big Idea to secure its financial future is to scrap the existing Visitor Centre and the grazing around it, and put 120 houses there instead. This would, they hope, raise enough to build a bigger better Visitor Centre even further from the main transport links, to which lots of new people would drive ready to empty their purses and wallets in the cause of providing an income to keep the charity going forever.

I suspect that's not the most promising of business plans – but it is the foundation for the case for allowing 120 houses to be built on the present site, along with conversion of a number of listed buildings to residential use. That's why it's called an 'enabling' development. It's much like the way Sainsburys get permission for a new superstore, not on its own merits, but on the promise of a new football stadium. No-one, not even the applicants, pretends that this application has any merit per se – but the planning committee will be asked to judge it on the merits of the greater prize; more horses rescued = more jobs = economic growth. Except there won't be any more long term jobs.

Whilst Horseworld have been fairly upfront about their long term plan, they've been far less public about actually putting in the planning application, so few people outside HorseWorld's own email list are aware of it. The official closing date for comments is today Thursday, July 18^th.

The major issue is using green belt land to build a remote housing estate with no amenities other than a service road (that even the developers admit would double as a rat run for a rat run), plus a big car park and some industrial scale sheds where, previously, the rescued horses grazed.  Even so, a few more oddities about the application.....

• There's no attempt to mitigate the considerable carbon footprint of the new development. Not even the Horseworld's biggest product, manure, gets utilised to offset energy inputs. 
• The huge arena roof expanses remain pretty much untouched by solar panels. 
• The sole attempt to improve public transport access is to suggest that the 515 bus be diverted that way, away from many of us who benefit from it just now. 
• An existing bus service, the single trip 636 Tuesday and Friday route, is claimed by the 'professional' consultants to provide a daily service to Horseworld's nearest public road. 
• The same consultants use an 'apples and oranges' strategy, with different traffic measures to play down the increases in road traffic. 
• Every possible excuse is used to avoid 'green' construction standards. 
• Above all, the business plan seems to pluck future visitor figures out of thin air – and these are the figures that 'justify' the enabling development.

On balance, this is a shoddy, cheap, unsustainable and unjustified bid with high environmental costs, relying mostly on emotional blackmail that horses will suffer if the development is turned down.

We're not persuaded.

515 survival

Finally got the news that

THE 515 IS PLANNED TO RUN FOR AT LEAST ANOTHER YEAR.

That's the hourly daytime bus service between Stockwood and Imperial Park, by way of Whitchurch centre and the hospital/leisure centre/college site at Hengrove Park. The initial year's contract is coming to an end. The tender is now going out for 2013/14. Passenger figures are said to be 'encouraging', slowly building up - as they should be for the only direct bus service between these key places.

Mr Grouchy, of course, still finds plenty to complain about. As an occasional passenger on the route, he's had to spend ages trying to confirm that the service will continue. His emails went unanswered. The 'public transport' phone number on the council website turned out to be the one that staff use to collect their voice-mail; and, hard though it is to believe, the BCC main switchboard's automated voice recognition system doesn't recognise the term 'public transport' - though it has to be said that Mr Grouchy hasn't mastered Bristolian, so there may be some excuse.

The councillors for the two wards - who you might expect to act as a link between the council and the consumers of its services (including the 515 passengers) - haven't said a dicky bird about it, even in the unlikely scenario that they're aware of the importance of the route. But then they don't do e-letters or websites, and they boycotted the NP website that was set up for just this sort of thing. We must wait for the next pre-election newsletters for news like this!