We are progressing with plans to develop Liveable Neighbourhoods in fifteen areas of Bath and North East Somerset. These schemes will breathe new life into local residential areas, by reducing the dominance of motor vehicles on roads and in public spaces. The Liveable Neighbourhoods approach encourages rethinking how street space is used, making it safer to move around actively, and enabling more people to make journeys on foot, by bike or wheeling. Over time, this will reduce car journeys, and so cut road congestion for those with no alternative but to travel by car.
Use these webpages to help you gain an understanding of how Liveable Neighbourhoods may affect you, and to help you provide your feedback about your local area, during this period of public engagement.
The wider council policy context
We declared a Climate Emergency in March 2019, and an Ecological Emergency in July 2019, pledging to achieve Carbon Neutrality in our area by 2030. Our overarching strategic plan, the B&NES Council Corporate Strategy, sets out our two core policies to improve the lives of local people: Tackling the Climate Emergency, and Giving people a bigger say.
Tackling the Climate Emergency
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Climate Action Plan (2019)
This Emergency Action Plan is designed to deliver on our Carbon Neutrality commitment. It sets out how we will reduce carbon emissions, improve air quality, and promote healthier lifestyles, through a major reduction in car use, and a shift to more active ways of travel. Liveable Neighbourhoods will play an important part in tackling the Climate Emergency, while improving health and wellbeing across our area. -
Air Quality Action Plans (AQAPs)
These are plans to improve air quality, by reducing Nitrogen Dioxide pollutants (which come primarily from motor vehicles). AQAPS are in place to reduce NO2 to within legal limits in a number of specific locations within Bath and the surrounding areas. Liveable Neighbourhoods offer the opportunity to improve air quality in residential areas, by putting in place measures to encourage people to travel using modes other than the car.
Giving people a bigger say
Our Liveable Neighbourhoods project works with the ideas, suggestions and needs of local people at every stage. This period of public engagement gives you an opportunity to contribute to the conversation, by identifying issues in your area, telling us about the impact on you and your community, and making suggestions for how you think we could improve these spaces and places.
Liveable Neighbourhoods also helps underpin the three guiding principles set out in the Corporate Strategy:
- Preparing for the future: by seeking to support the transition to a green, local economy and enabling a major shift to walking, micro-mobility, cycling, car-sharing, buses and rail
- Delivering for local residents: by facilitating significant improvements to the transport infrastructure and encouraging behaviour change to forms of transport other than the car, along with introducing ‘low traffic neighbourhoods,’ working together with schools and local communities
- Focusing on prevention: by prioritising preventative approaches so that people can stay healthy, supporting our residents to live well and independently and promoting good health and reduce health inequalities
The policy context for this project
We produced and published the following three strategies in July 2020, to help guide and support the creation of future Liveable Neighbourhoods.
These strategies aim to set out how we can mitigate the climate crisis through the adoption of more sustainable and healthy transport options, and help to rethink how we use our streets. Their implementation will help us meet the aims of the Liveable Neighbourhoods, such as the following:
- Better health and wellbeing for residents, as a result of increased physical activity
- Closer communities, supported by quieter and safer streets
- Reduced rat running, speeding and inappropriate access for HGVs on residential roads
Related consultations
This project is a part of a much larger review of how we manage travel and transport in our area.
- We have recently consulted on plans to introduce new parking restrictions in Oldfield Park and Westmoreland, Bath. We are currently collating feedback and will be reporting the results in early 2022.
- We recently consulted on plans to link the cost of parking permits throughout Bath to vehicle emissions.
- We have several active travel schemes currently in development, with further consultations upcoming in December.
- We are due to consult on the development of our Journey To Net Zero transport delivery plan in January 2022.
- The West of England Combined Authority (WECA) is now consulting on transport issues along the A37, A367 and A362 Corridors between Radstock, Midsomer Norton and Westfield, and Bath and Bristol.