Great Western Coffee Shop

Meanwhile, back in Bristol: whilst trying to guess what simonw's source might have been for this:


...I stumbled upon the agenda for the West of England Combined Authority's extraordinary meeting (https://www.westofengland-ca.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/WECA-Committee-Paper-15-September-2017.pdf), to be held at Kingswood Civic Centre on 15th Sept 2017. On page 80 of this you will find a list of 'JSP Mitigation schemes for Outline Business Case development'. Below is a copy of the list in which I have categorised the schemes:

Corridors	Schemes	Category
South East Bristol and Whitchurch package	A4-A37 orbital route (including Hicks Gate roundabout improvements)	Road
	A37-Bristol Link	Road
	A4 Metrobus (Bristol to Keynsham MetroBus) and Callington Road Link	Road/MetroBus
	Orbital Metrobus	MetroBus
	Park & Ride Provision	P&R
A4 Bristol – east Keynsham arterial corridor	Avon Mill Lane to A4 link	Road
	Keynsham rail station improvements	Rail
Yate Strategic corridor (A4174 to Yate/CS)	A432 MetroBus and strategic cycle route	MetroBus/Cycle
	A432 Park and Ride	P&R
	Yate station enhancements	Rail
	Winterbourne Frampton Cottrell by pass	Road
A38 (J16, Almondsbury to Falfield)	MetroBus and strategic cycle route to Thornbury (and Buckover), including A38 Park and ride	MetroBus/Cycle
	Charfield rail station	Rail
	M5 J14 improvements	Road
Ring of Park and rides around Bristol	M32 Park & Ride	P&R
	A4018 Park & Ride	P&R
	A38(S) Park & Ride	P&R
	(Other Park & Rides covered elsewhere)	P&R
Bristol Urban Living Package	Walking and Cycling Package including strategic cycling routes	Cycle
	Greater Bristol Bus Network 2	Bus
	City Centre Movement	?

I can see a lot of expensive-looking road schemes here, along with park-and-ride schemes (which are more-or-less the same thing), but not much rail or anything else for that matter. Charfield Station is mentioned, but not Saltford.

Callington Road Link, for those who don't know the area, involves building a road along a stretch of the old Bristol and North Somerset railway at Brislington - one of the few corridors that could potentially have been used by a light rail scheme, if that wasn't a pipe dream. I am guessing that the Yate Strategic Corridor is the old Midland Railway route from Shortwood up to Westerleigh - another potential rail corridor lost.

I'm finding it hard to see the upside of all this...

Possibly this and my previous post should be a new topic 'Greater Bristol JSP'..?

To expand on some of the schemes listed:

The 'A4-A37 orbital route (including Hicks Gate roundabout improvements)' appears to be a new route through green belt to the south-east of Stockwood, supporting a development of up to 3,500 new homes (see West of England Joint Spatial Plan: Towards the Emerging Spatial Strategy (https://www.jointplanningwofe.org.uk/consult.ti/JSPEmergingSpatialStrategy/viewCompoundDoc?docid=8259188&partid=8268308&sessionid=&voteid=)). Would they try to sell this as a MetroBus route?

Buckover is a proposed 'garden village' (http://www.tortworthestate.com/gardenvillage) located somewhere near Thornbury Garden Centre.

The 'Avon Mill Lane to A4 link' is suspiciously close to Keynsham Station - one wonders if these schemes are in any way linked?

I think 'City Centre Movement' refers to Bristol's  Draft City Centre Public Realm and Movement Framework (https://www.bristol.gov.uk/documents/20182/33167/Draft+City+Centre+Public+Realm+and+Movement+Framework), which is a set of policies whose intent can more or less be summed up as 'two legs good, four wheels bad' (and which is already under threat from schemes such as the redevelopment of a large chunk of Broadmead (https://www.businesswest.co.uk/blog/james-durie-callowhill-court-redevelopment-plans-bristol-city-centre).

This was always vaguely predictable from the geographical set up of the CAA. (That's Combined Area Authority, not Coventry Arena station or Civil Aviation Authority.)

Now done, Red Squirrel - with thanks for your suggestion.  ;)

Just spotted this - a campaign against Even Greater Thornbury Mayor Peter Bowles' plan to convert a length of the North Somerset Railway through Brislington into an urban expressway: https://bristolcycling.org.uk/railway-path-not-relief-road/

Sadly this looks like a good old fashioned Bristolian partisan scrap with Labour (in the form of councillors Beech and Threlfal) backing the road (and thereby siding with the Tory Mayor of WoE), whilst the LibDems (remember them?) are backing the greenway option. As the Leader of the Free World would say: SAD!