Plans to put a bus lane on the Keynsham bypass have been ditched after the Labour candidate in the metro mayor election told the existing Labour mayor she wouldn’t be going ahead with it if elected.
That prompted current West of England metro mayor Dan Norris to agree to withdraw the ongoing consultation and drop the plan entirely, leaving the dual carriageway on the A4 around Keynsham without a bus lane for the foreseeable future. But the decision – and the way it has been made – has sparked fury among council leaders in Keynsham and Bath, who said they were ‘astonished’ at the announcement.
Improving the A4 corridor between Bath and Bristol for public transport has been a thorny subject for a generation of politicians, with the latest proposals seeing WECA spending as much as £89 million on bus and bike lanes along the route.
Last summer, it was agreed to split the project into two, with bus lanes on the A4 in Bristol being considered ‘easier to deliver’ than in Bath. In North East Somerset, places like Saltford are to get bus lanes, with a separate project to make bus travel easier into Bristol through Brislington on the A4 in the pipeline.
But plans to install a bus lane on the A4 Keynsham bypass were among the most controversial. Last summer, councillors in the area spoke of how they were ‘extremely unpopular’, and now it appears the idea of a bus lane on the Keynsham bypass is dead in the water before it even happens.
Helen Godwin, the Labour candidate for the West of England Combined Authority metro mayor election on May 1, has now announced that, if elected, she will not go ahead with the scheme. The current metro mayor Dan Norris is also a Labour politician – but cannot stand again because last year he was also elected to be the North East Somerset and Hanham MP.
Helen Godwin said that her opposition to the idea prompted Dan Norris to agree not to proceed with it – so whoever is elected on May 1 will have to resurrect the idea if they want it to go ahead.
“I’ve been holding listening events all over the West of England area to hear what residents have got to say about where they live,” said Ms Godwin, who was a senior member of Marvin Rees ’ cabinet when Labour ran Bristol City Council, “Many residents have raised concerns with me about these bus lanes, feeling that they’re unnecessary and would make journeys longer, and commuting more difficult.
“Many residents feel frustrated that their voices haven’t been heard during the process and that they’ve not received adequate communication about the proposed scheme.
“I want residents to know that I will take action. I’ve spoken to the current West of England mayor Dan Norris and subsequently he has withdrawn the consultation and suspended any further development of the scheme to allow for a new mayor to take a view and determine the way forward. I want residents to know I will not progress this scheme and I will take a fresh look at the wider proposal for the A4, including the option of enhanced rail services and a new station for Saltford,” she added.
That sparked a furious reaction from Cllr Sarah Warren, the deputy leader of Bath and North East Somerset Council, and the person at B&NES with responsibility for transport.
She has written to Mr Norris demanding answers, and wants to know why the decision was announced by one of the metro mayor election candidates in a Facebook post, and not by the metro mayor himself at a meeting held just last week to discuss the plan.
She told Dan Norris she was ‘astonished’. “It is a little over a week since the last WECA Committee meeting, which would surely have been the appropriate forum for a discussion about this suspension with your partners in the unitary authorities, and for a joint announcement of such a significant decision for the A4, impacting the whole region,” she said.
“This continues the pattern of complete disregard for your unitary authority colleagues on the WECA committee, as well as for residents, that has been such a feature of your tenure at WECA over the last four years, and that has placed the Combined Authority into government special measures,” she added.
“I have asked your officers numerous times over the last year to engage with local people and councillors about the A4 scheme, and to produce the modelling evidence that would demonstrate whether or not your proposed bus lanes on the Keynsham bypass would have the local impacts on the network that residents fear,” she said. “Your staff are unable to produce the modelling – it does not exist. And now, again without evidence either way, you have single-handedly taken a chaotic decision to suspend the scheme, wasting the millions that have been spent on it to date.
“I write today demanding clarity. Residents deserve to know what is left of plans to enhance sustainable travel along this important axis for the region, and whether other elements of the A4 scheme are still going ahead,” she added. “The abrupt withdrawal of the Keynsham A4 bus lane scheme, as well as the inappropriate way in which this announcement was made, will surely have further damaged WECA’s reputation with both residents and the national government.
“Can you now provide us with reassurance that other WECA-funded schemes will not also be scrapped, apparently on a whim, to give the Labour candidate an advantage in the forthcoming Mayoral election?” she added.