Are we being softened up by the Council…
by a hard hitting poster campaign? There’s a big publicity push started today to get us ready for using our cars less. Despite there being so little news and minimal alacrity to engage with us in their consultation the Council are dropping hints as to what is to come.
You can find the the whole communication here on their new “Clean Air 4 Bath’ page.
The main hint is the big emphasis on not using your car. The official line is that the classes of transport to be charged has not been agreed as yet, but it looks pretty likely that Class D will be in there.
Not a great surprise really. Go here to check whether your car is chargeable.
So the zone is basically set now and it will cut across Camden Road just to the SW of Gay’s Hill. And London Road will be cut across to the NE of Cleveland Bridge.
The other variables we wait to see are:
- level of charge – somewhere between £3 and £13 per day
- potentially not 24×7, although that seems to be the favoured option
I think the CRA Committee is still supportive as long as the practical difficulties and potential inequities caused by the CAZ, as outlined in our paper sent to the Council in June are dealt with satisfactorily. I’m due to see Mark Shelford, Cabinet Member for Transport and Environment, in the middle of next Month if you want me to pursue any issues with him.
Oh yes – a date for the diary is for the evening of Thursday 22nd November for the CRA AGM at Claremont Methodist Church. We’ll be knocking on doors in late October to tell you more and to offer you our newsletter.
Jeremy Labram, Chair
Ideally the CAZ should be drawn wider, but even as proposed it should prevent some of the ways to bypass the zone. I have looked at “Clean Air 4 Bath’ page. There are many good pieces of advice to reduce emissions from vehicles and if more people did most of these things it would I am sure make a difference. It is interesting to see the note that inside a car you are likely to experience 12 times more pollution than walking, presumably unless you recycle the air within the vehicle. This needs more publicity. There is nothing about reducing pollution from the “school run”, which studies have shown is a major contributor to the amount of car traffic. I would hope the revenue for entering a zone with a chargeable vehicle go towards subsidising public transport locally. As always there is encouragement to cycle, but the recent introduction of an Advisory Lane at Weston Road by Victoria Park just doesn’t do anything to make cyclists feel safer. Virtually all vehicles I have seen here drive in it as though it wasn’t there, particularly when something comes the other way. The solution here is to remove the parking on the opposite side of the road which would provide adequate width.