The CAZ and Camden Report

Many thanks to the 80 or so people who attended our AGM, last Thursday 22nd November.  In the second half we had an open discussion on the CAZ and how we feel it will effect residents of Camden and the surrounding neighbourhoods with the opportunity to question Mark Shelford, the Cabinet Member for Transport in the Council.  It was heartening to see so many people there with such earnest intentions and concerns.  This post is about the outcomes from that session and what we have done with them.  Thanks too, to:

• Niall at the centre for thinking to take a photograph of the meeting, and
• Ashley, at the newly re-opened Fairfield Arms, for hosting those who shared a drink afterwards.

The consultation on the Charging Clean Air Zone closed last night.  This basically took two forms:

• Survey:  As individuals and interest groups we were invited to complete a thirteen section on-line questionnaire.  Apparently by last Thursday 6,000 of these had been completed – there were probably considerably more sent in the last few days.  The questionnaire was set up on the Survey Monkey digital platform which collates the data automatically and makes analysis relatively easy for the Council to do over the next few days.

We were advised that one survey sent from the CRA, would carry more weight than individual ones.  So the new Committee considered how to squeeze our recent findings into the constraints of a structured questionnaire and managed to get it submitted yesterday afternoon.

• Active participation at surgeries and meetings which many of us went to.  We were also fortunate to secure three iterative meetings with the project team as well as to meet with Mark Shelford twice.  This level of engagement enabled us to understand how the project team were genuinely tackling many of the issues and then seeking central funding to support their mitigation plans.  We were willing and confident to engage in helping to find solutions to our local issues which probably have even wider application across Bath.

We very much felt that we needed to write up our latest position taking into account all we had previously highlighted and brought into our discussions with the council, as well as what came up on the doorsteps as we delivered our recent newsletter and the AGM itself.

So click here for our important statement on our view of the issues of particular concern to the residents of Camden.  By all means add your own comments to this post.

According to their website the next step for the Council is as follows…

The proposal was open to public consultation until 26 November 2018. We are now analysing the feedback which will inform our final proposal. This will be presented to Cabinet on 18 December when a decision will be made.

Meanwhile we’d like to thank everyone who took part for their valuable feedback.