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January 2018
News Hatchet Road bus lane plan scrapped amid concerns of overspend on ‘MetroBus 2’ Local campaigners delighted that council’s U-turn will avoid destruction of many mature trees and hedgerows
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controversial plan to construct a new southbound bus lane on Hatchet Road in Stoke Gifford, as part of a scheme to extend the currently under-construction North Fringe to Hengrove Package (NFHP) MetroBus network, has been scrapped after South Gloucestershire Council’s Conservative-led administration announced a “change of policy”. The move appears to have been driven by a fear that the Cribbs Patchway MetroBus Extension (CPME) project may already be heading for a significant overspend before a spade has even touched the ground. The CPME will provide a MetroBus route between The Mall at Cribbs Causeway and Bristol Parkway Station. It will also serve the new developments planned for the former Filton Airfield site. The Hatchet Road bus lane had formed part of the scheme since its inception, yet was overwhelmingly opposed during a public consultation exercise in winter 2015/16. In their responses, many local residents criticised the plan to uproot mature hedgerows and trees from both sides of Hatchet Road and there were calls for an alternative route to be used along Winterbourne Road and Great Stoke Way, accessing Parkway Station from the east. When the proposals first came to an SGC committee for approval in May 2016, a report prepared by officers showed that the Hatchet Road bus lane would cost £2m to implement and yet save only 29 seconds on MetroBus journey times (and this at just one time of day). One alternative option involving the implementation of lay-bys at bus stops instead of a bus lane, came out cheaper and more effective, but officers insisted that the bus
lane option was better because it offered “consistently reliable” MetroBus journey times. A decision was deferred until a further meeting in July 2017, when Conservative councillors out-voted Liberal Democrat and Labour colleagues to force through the bus lane. Local campaigners responded by forming an action group and starting a petition, which attracted over 3,300 signatures, allowing them to force a further council debate in July 2017, where it was decided to ask officers to produce a further report that would be presented to Cabinet. By the time this came back to the latest meeting in December 2017, the average time saving claimed for the bus lane had risen to 93 seconds (based on “more accurate” traffic data) and all other options, including the lay-by alternative, had been dismissed on technical or cost grounds. However, a press release put out by the Conservative group ahead of the meeting talked of a possible “change in policy” on the CPME scheme. Noting that the council is already having to find almost £10m to cover its share of the overspend on the main NFHP MetroBus scheme, it stressed that it was “imperative that the CPME project stays within budget”. A vague reference to the possibility of additional costs “upwards of six figures” being incurred should Network Rail have to delay construction of the new railway bridge on Gipsy Patch Lane, which forms a major part of the £35 million CPME scheme, was given as a potential justification for “making savings elsewhere”. On being asked how voting to scrap the bus lane could be reconciled with the contents of the officer report, which made no concrete reference to a need for cost savings, a Conservative
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