Our concern is tackling pollution in the city centre which is damaging peoples health now. So we support measures which will make a difference in the short term and confront the issues of the here and now.
We strongly support the need for Park-and-Ride facilities to the east of the City. It has been part of the expensively created transport strategy for some time and indeed figured in many previous strategies. Its time to put the strategy into action.
The selected site should operate for 7 days a week until late, with secure overnight parking, to enable its use by evening visitors and those staying overnight in Bath. The public transport to and from the city centre should use low emission vehicles, and be inexpensive to use.
Our concern is pollution and its reduction in the short term. One of the factors that increases pollution in the city centre is people driving around the city seeking somewhere to park. While we applaud the plans to build more out of town parking, we also recognise that people need to and, for the foreseeable future, will want to drive their cars into the city.
We therefore believe that it is important to have better planning for what to do with vehicles coming into the city that need to park. We would therefore like to see:
- More parking capacity in the city centre, perhaps by adding another layer above or below Charlotte Street
- An end to giving planning consent to hotel developments which have no parking provision
- A firm principle that parking spaces cannot be removed without a plan to provide additional capacity elsewhere
- That on street parking should be primarily for residents’ use but with clear allocation of bays that businesses can use for their customer loading and collecting
- A proper plan for managing coaches coming into Bath and in particular putting in place deterrents against coaches that merely drive round the city’s major attraction without allowing passengers to disembark
Our research also shows that a key factor in reducing pollution from vehicles in the city centre is reducing the amount of stop start driving they do. This means removing unnecessary obstructions, for instance, reducing the number of traffic lights, and ensuring traffic lights are better coordinated to avoid the build-up of queues.