Three things this week
1. 20 mph on Lansdown Road
Our next door residents association, the Lansdown Crescent Association, are confounded by a Council decision to favour certain radial routes into the city with 20 mph restrictions but not others such as Lansdown Road. Of the long slopes out of the city it is probably the busiest and has several dangerous single-lane pinch points between the five way junction with Camden Road and Richmond Road. This, along with a strong exhortation to walk and cycle more has prompted their chair, Rachel Hushon, to launch a petition. If you feel similarly then do sign her petition here. In five days she’s amassed 377 signatures!
2. Millennium Green
The Millennium Green is the nice sitting out area between Richmond Road and the allotments which probably many of us use, particularly over the last year.
It often comes as a surprise to people to learn that the upkeep of this area is funded entirely by charitable donations, receiving no public funding at all.
Ordinarily, the Trustees run a number of fundraising events each year including Lansdown Open Gardens, fetes on the Green and talks in the church hall.
In these difficult times it has not been possible to do these and so they are launching the MG Lottery! Click here to read more about it and enter. They are hoping to offer at least one £100 prize per month for a minimum stake of £2 per month.
3. Liveable neighbourhood for Camden
We have known since summer, last year, that the next big step in the process is for our local ward councillors to co-prepare a bid for Walcot. This has to be submitted early in February. We are pretty much ready to draft this and have been most grateful for the support of many of our residents who have signed our petition, which today has 159 signatures. You can add your weight to this now by clicking here.
There has been a lot of news, both for and against the implementation of this type of scheme in London and other smaller cities. Last week a well structured report was published which ‘joined the dots up’ very well. You can read it here. In essence:
- increasing use of neighbourhood streets by cars over the last 10 years has caused air pollution, making these streets less safe for pedestrians and cyclists. This is a proven public health concern,
- simple traffic calming measures don’t improve the situation sufficiently, just as we’ve found on Camden Road with single lane traffic flow and speed bumps,
- however minimising through traffic would do two things:
- it reduces traffic and makes the road quieter and safer for residents, of course, but
- it also does the same for those who already do walk or cycle to and from other parts of Bath,
- So for many this will be a new and pleasant option – to walk and cycle, rather than use the car. This is an example of modal shift away from car use, to other ‘active’ forms of travel.
We are fortunate in having a good bus service through Camden which we assume would continue to run along far less congested streets. We also have a surgery, pharmacy and other shops and services which would be safer to get to and use if the roads were quieter. Further afield Larkhall has a wide array of independent shops which would become an even more pleasant walk away.