TRESA asked questions about progress of the St Lukes Road pedestrain crossing at the July 2021 meeting of ‘Area 5 Committee’. The questions and responses are set out in full below.
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AC5 Public Forum Responses: Thursday 29th July 2021
TRESA (Totterdown Residents Environmental & Social Action) would like to submit the following questions to Area Committee 5, 29th July.
Question 1
Please can you provide an update on progress of the pedestrian crossing on St Lukes Road between St Lukes Steps and Victoria Park?
Response
Thank you for your question. The Transport Team have provided the following update:
A preliminary design of a crossing of St Luke’s Road has been developed in line with the request and funding allocated by the Area Committee and has been taken through all the appropriate internal design processes to ensure that we are confident that we have a design that could be delivered if it is supported locally.
However, this process has highlighted a potential overlap with another potential scheme in the area, and so we are currently reviewing this project to ensure that it is compatible with these other plans should they develop further.
We appreciate that the funding available to the Area Committee is limited and so we are trying to be prudent and not spend this funding on asking what people think of the design if we then have to return and seek views on a different design a few months later. This would be frustrating to all and would reduce the funding that would then be available to build the crossing.
We also do not want to miss out on the opportunity to fund this project through a different budget if that opportunity arises thereby enabling the Area Committee to reallocate their funding to other local priorities.
We are working hard to resolve this and will provide an update as soon as we can. The most recent delivery update for Area Committee-approved CIL and S106 Transport schemes was provided in March 2021. A further update will be provided at the end of August 2021.
Question 2
There seem to have been problems across the city in progressing CIL/Section 106 transport projects. We understand there have been updates for councillors on the CIL/Section 106 projects across the city, and within their wards. TRESA would like information about the total number of CIL/Section 106 projects across the city that have funding but where work has not yet started, the order in which the work will be undertaken, and where the St Lukes Road pedestrian crossing lies on that list. Please can you provide this information?
Response:
The Transport Team have provided the following update to Area Committees:
The previous rounds of Area Committees allocated funding to a range of different highway schemes. A number of these projects have or will soon be completed, whilst others still have a significant amount of work to do. It is important that these projects are completed before officers start concentrating on any new projects approved through this round of Area Committee meetings. We anticipate completing the majority of these projects over the next 12-15 months and so expect to be able to start work on any new local traffic schemes approved by the Area Committees by the end of Summer 2022. This depends on whether the existing projects proceed through the remaining stages of development smoothly in terms of public support, technical approval, cost and the availability of officers to undertake the work. It may be possible that some proposed schemes could be brought forward ahead of that timeline and any opportunities to do so will be taken, for example where proposals tie into or extend another existing scheme that is already further along in the design stages. Any proposed schemes that are taken through to Stage 2 will need to be considered in more detail and the timeline for each individual project will need to be considered on a case by case basis at that point.