Meeting over park-and-ride site plans

Monday, September 08, 2008

Parish councillors will meet later this month to discuss plans for a new park-and-ride site in their village.

Bath and North East Somerset Council wants to build a £6.3 million car park at Bathampton to serve a park-and-ride route in and out of the city centre.

The subject will be on the agenda of a parish council meeting on September 18.

It will be the first chance for the parish authority to discuss the 1,300-space scheme since B&NES revealed its plans to abandon its previous first choice of Lambridge for the site in July.

The chosen location at Mill Lane would be accessed from the Batheaston bypass via a traffic signal-controlled junction.

Parish council chairman Tony McCann said: "We don't have an official view at the moment, and we may decide to get a good sounding of village opinion before arriving at one."

The parish council may decide to organise a consultation exercise or hold a one-off meeting.

B&NES councillor for the area Gabriel Batt (Con, Bathavon North) said his constituents seemed generally supportive of the choice.

The council revealed its chosen option after investigating a number of sites around Bathampton, Bathford and Batheaston.

A park-and-ride site for the east of Bath is a crucial cornerstone of the Bath Transport Package, a series of ideas which are backed with around £50 million of Government cash.

He said: "While Mill Lane would not have been my first choice of a park-and-ride site, I can see the logic in having it here. I have looked through all the other possible sites the council assessed and Mill Lane comes out the most cost-effective, holding almost double the number of cars that Lambridge would have held. I certainly welcome the prospect of reduced congestion along the London Road once a park-and-ride is built.

"Most of the feedback that I have had has actually been pretty positive. Only a couple of residents have come to me with strong objections to the site but most can see it is a difficult choice to make.

"Along with local residents, my main concern is with minimising the impact on local people."

Key local members of the Campaign to Protect Rural England will meet in the next few days to discuss their formal response to the site plan, although the organisation says park and ride is "an old solution to a modern problem".