By John Wimperis, Local Democracy Reporter: A controversial row of bollards in Bath have got the final sign off needed to become a permanent part of the city’s street scene.
The bollards between Sydney Road and New Sydney Place were installed in April 2024 on a trial basis as part of Bath and North East Somerset Council’s liveable neighbourhood programme. Liveable neighbourhoods (also called low traffic neighbourhoods or LTNs) aim to reduce traffic in residential areas and create safer, quieter routes for walking and cycling but have been highly controversial. The Sydney Road scheme has been possibly the most controversial liveable neighbourhood in the city.
The Sydney Road and New Sydney Place Liveable Neighbourhood has had strong support on the road but faced major opposition from the rest of Bath. People on neighbouring Beckford Road say that closing Sydney Road has made their road an “unliveable neighbourhood” with more dangerous congestion. The start of the scheme was also marked by large vehicles having to turn around in Sydney Road after mistakenly travelling down it.
After the end of the trial, the council took the original controversial decision to make it permanent. Backbench councillors mounted a challenge to this but were voted down. That was in March but the formal traffic regulation order issued after that point to take into account the outcomes of that trial also needed to go out to consultation, which happened in July.
Now the council has made the final official decision to keep the scheme permanently. The council’s cabinet member for sustainable transport strategy Joel Hirst said: “I want to thank everyone who has taken part in the many consultations on this scheme. For anyone who wants to find the full consultation outcomes and monitoring data you can find it on our website.”
The scheme has a total price tag of £833k, funded by the government’s “city region sustainable transport settlement” funding. The trial cost £306k to implement temporarily but the council insisted there had been “no escalation” in costs as the full larger amount of money covered the trial, the work to make it permanent, and complementary measures such as the new crossing planned across Sydney Place.
Work is now to be carried out on replacing temporary kerbs with permanent kerbs and physical changes to the North Road junction to improve access for cyclists, although the latter is outside of the traffic regulation order process.
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