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news
Cleveland Bridge, Bath (credit: CC BY-SA 2.0 wikimedia commons/Stephen Richards)Active travel encouraged as major Bath bridge to close to motor traffic for urgent works
Bath and North East Somerset Council has encouraged residents and commuters to use Cleveland Bridge's upcoming closure for urgent maintenance works as an opportunity for more cycling and walking journeys. The bridge's closure will likely need to be delayed beyond 28 June after a worker tested positive for Covid, but it will remain open to cyclists and pedestrians throughout the three-month project which is expected to cost around £3.5 million.
The council encouraged residents to make short journeys by bike or on foot in its information for local residents ahead of the renovation.
Councillor Richard Samuel, acting leader of Bath & North East Somerset Council added: "Please have a look at the diversion routes in advance to help you plan your journeys by car or consider whether you could leave your vehicle at home and walk, cycle or scoot around the city instead.
"Although these engineering works are bound to cause some disruption and inconvenience for drivers, it’s essential that we ensure Cleveland Bridge continues to be safe to use and preserve its historic value."
The bridge forms an important route to and from Bath, linking the north side of the River Avon and the A4 with the A36 and carries 17,000 vehicles a day. A permanent weight limit similar to the temporary 18-tonne limit in place ahead of the works was proposed before being shot down by central government due to the popularity of the route.
Bath MP Wera Hobhouse said: "The government position is we need to find agreement with Wiltshire. I really want to work constructively to find a solution rather than having a standoff which isn't good for anybody. It's in nobody's interest that the bridge falls into the river."
When exactly the works will begin remains unclear after Councillor Mandy Rigby told a meeting this week that the closure from 28 June was looking "increasingly unlikely" due to the positive Covid test. One thing we do know is that when it shuts to motor traffic—cyclists and pedestrians will be allowed to cross as normal.
Dan is the road.cc news editor and joined in 2020 having previously written about nearly every other sport under the sun for the Express, and the weird and wonderful world of non-league football for The Non-League Paper. Dan has been at road.cc for four years and mainly writes news and tech articles as well as the occasional feature. He has hopefully kept you entertained on the live blog too.
Never fast enough to take things on the bike too seriously, when he's not working you'll find him exploring the south of England by two wheels at a leisurely weekend pace, or enjoying his favourite Scottish roads when visiting family. Sometimes he'll even load up the bags and ride up the whole way, he's a bit strange like that.
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4 comments
I don't live far from Cleveland bridge; I hope B&NES stick to this as the local web whining/NIMBYism cesspit that is Nextdoor (makes the Mail comments section look tame at times) is asking people to lobby their councillor to get the bus gate in town opened up which would send all the traffic through there. The Bath traffic situation is pretty dire and so tied up in knots that any solutions just get met with howls of NIMBYism. It rolls on for years and the sum total is no change (same for lots of other non-traffic related issues). The Lib Dem council just tried to push through some new bike lane/route proposals which they've backtracked on (some of them) due to a NIMBY campaign; rather ironic for a party that prides itself on latching on to NIMBY groups. The next one is LTNs but the NIMBY brigades are already massing to oppose that even though Bath is infested with rat-runs. I thought they were voted in with a mandate to get some of this stuff sorted. There is the CAZ but that doesn't really affect traffic volume as it only targets old commercial diesel vehicles. As a safe place to cycle it's OK but not great. There was even a NIMBY campaign against a 5G mast (usual crazy conspiracy stuff, even though the mobile data signal is pretty dire in Bath) and the MP (Lib Dem) popped up to support; the Guardian tore into her for that stunt.
Cleveland Bridge is totally unsuitable for the heavy traffic that it currently sees. The problem is though that there are no real alternatives for heavy traffic that has to come into Bath from the east along the A4 or from the north along the A46 from the M4 motorway.
Closing the bridge is going to force a significant amount of heavy traffic right through the city centre, along The Paragon and through Queen Square. The corner of George Street and Gay Street, already a conflict point between pedestrians and motor traffic, is going to become even worse as lorries and similar heavy vehicles try to negotiate the sharp corner.
I haven't been to Bath in years. I'm amazed to find out it hasn't been closed to traffic by now (at least to the standard of central Cambridge and Oxford, if not more so).
The problem Bath has is geography and the layout of existing main roads. Unlike Camridge/Oxford there simply is no way around the city centre without significant diversion. While I completely agree with Paulrattew that the Cleveland Bridge is totally unsuitable there would need to be a substantial change in the roads that connect from the M4 to the city to avoid the HGVs/trucks/a shedload of traffic using Cleveland Bridge.
Short of upgrading/widening Landsown Road/Gorse Lane/Freezinghill Lane and directing traffic through a lot of other residential areas there actually isn't an option.
I guess the 'best' (although completely groundbreaking) solution would be to build a depot/sorting yard on London Road (on the A46/A4 junction) and then distribute into the city using large cargo bikes/small electric vans, but it would be a paradigm shift for a lot of businesses. And it doesn't help Warminster/Bradford on Avon or anywhere directly south of Bath.