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Minutes of the 20 March 2007 Community Meeting

1. Police report

No police present.

2. City Transport Policy with Stuart Croucher (B&HCC Transport Planning Manager) and Mark Strong (co-opted member Sustainability Commission, Chair, B&H Cycling Forum)

Mark Strong discussed how to encourage people to walk, cycle or use public transport more and use the car less often (or use car clubs) using the Hanover Greentravel project leaflet as an example with its map of cycle routes, bus stops, pedestrian and toucan crossings etc and advice on avoiding car use.

Stuart Croucher referred to the Local Transport Plan for the next 5 years and the 10 goals of the sustainable transport strategy: improved air quality; improved accessibility by sustainable transport modes i.e anything but the car; partnerships (ie with bus companies); increased compatibility (ie not reduced number of cars and then support out of town shopping centres); maintain and improve highway network; reduce road congestion (tourists spend 1 ½ hours on last ½ mile); get the message out there: impact of the car and its cost; improve the social and economic environment of the city. Funding £5 million from government of which £3.5 million is for improvements. Five things to cover: Congestion, Road safety, Air quality, Accessibility (how long it takes to get into town) and quality of life (noise etc). There are 3 programmes,

1. Sustainable transport corridors (bus and cycle lanes and footways: looking to add to A259, Western Rd and finish the gyratory);
2. Urban road improvements: city’s roads ‘don’t live up to the architecture’ - New Road scheme first scheme of its kind in the country; Copenhagen a model
3. Walking & Cycling: won ‘cycling demo town’ status on basis of what already accomplished and what propose to do; 2009 will be year of walking and cycling with segregated cycle ways (biggest barrier to cycling is ‘fear’) and step-free walkways. A vision for the future (2012?) was to transform the Old Steine and related green spaces (‘from the air it looks like a jewel, on the ground it doesn’t work’) by re-routing traffic to the eastern side only.

Various points were made in discussion: dangers of pavement clutter including tables and chairs (council ‘on cusp’ of having policy on this); need to provide enough parking for cyclists; problems of heavy lorries servicing Western Road stores (Regent Hill and Crown St). As regards the pecking order for street users currently there was none: traditionally it was cars – trying to change that; use of planned routes as in Hanover greentravel leaflet.

3. Minutes of previous meeting

These were approved.

4. Update from Management Committee

Current Issues are covered below

5. Update on RAH re-development

Roy Pennington reported that PCT considering plans to replace Montpelier surgery and were in discussion with Wimpey about potential use of hospital site.

6. Treasurer’s report

The newsletter continued to generate a small surplus.

7. AOB

The EGM to discuss the constitution was postponed again, as the meeting was not quorate. Concern was expressed about the huge skip in Temple Street and a reminder given about the Primark store planning hearing on 1 May.

25 attended