As Bath and North East Somerset Council continues with plans to introduce Low Traffic Neighbourhoods (LTN), five more sites have been proposed, however two of these have received fierce criticism from residents who feel their opinions and concerns are being ignored and have called on opposition parties to call for scrutiny of these decisions.

Low Traffic Neighbourhoods are areas where vehicles cannot travel on certain residential roads, created in order to reduce the general level of traffic in that area, the two proposed locations causing concern are Sydney Road and Lower Lansdown.

A spokesperson for the Independent Councillors said “to be clear, we fully support LTNs where there is evidence to demonstrate an improvement to residents enjoyment of the area they live in, there are however some proposed LTNs that lack the supporting evidence. When there is such a groundswell of opposition from the residents that will be impacted, then the need for review is just common sense, these residents look towards the opposition groups to provide them with a voice and call-in the decision.

“We are pleased therefore that there is a cross-party call-in to review the Southlands TRO. For the newly proposed Liveable Neighbourhoods in Sydney Road and Lower Lansdown however, currently only the Independent and Conservative Councillors have requested a review which we find surprising considering there have been more than 3500 petition signatures for Sydney Road and 1500 for Lower Lansdown. In a Council dominated by a single party it’s vital that opposition groups take a lead in providing balance and scrutiny.

“For a call-in request to be accepted it requires the request of nine Councillors and we are extremely disappointed that the Labour Party have refused to give these residents an opportunity to have their concerns heard and support the call-in.

“The call-in process is purely an additional layer of scrutiny to give the Council an additional opportunity to make the right choice and demonstrate that the four values we have as our core policies are more than just words, in particular “Giving people a bigger say” making decisions through collaboration with residents.

“Going forward we would agree with the need for a broader examination of the Liveable neighbourhood scheme however in the short term our priority must be to support residents affected by current proposals.”

Cllr Shaun Hughes

Cllr Colin Blackburn

Cllr Karen Walker

Cllr June Player

Cllr Gavin Heathcote

B&NES Councillors

Independent Group