Topic: Bypass News - Westbury Area Board @ 7pm, Thurs 10 Oct, The Laverton

[baldy]

The agenda includes the following:

Update from Western Gateway Sub-National Transport Body
Allan Creedy - Head of Service: Sustainable Transport at Wiltshire Council will update the Area Board on the long term strategy for the improvements to the A350 in Wiltshire.

The public are welcome to attend and to ask questions to the Head of service for major road projects. He knows what is happening with obtaining funding for a Westbury Bypass, which involves several possible funding sources ...

This item will be quite early on in the meeting so best to get your seat by 7pm.


Meeting details:  https://cms.wiltshire.gov.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?CId=173&MId=12340

[baldy]

Just got back from the meeting. Allan Creedy gave quite a detailed explanation of the funding context and background for A350 improvements.

Here is a simple summary of what is otherwise a long and technical essay:

Forget the Local Economic Partnership as its funding stream is too small.

Government is now putting large amounts of £Billions into Strategic Road schemes (Highway Agency handles this for Motorways and primary routes) and Major Road Schemes (A350 comes into this).

WC has submitted bids for the 2020-2025 funding tranche which includes the Melksham Bypass. Expect decisions within next 12 months or so. If Melksham Bypass is funded for starting in 2020-2025, then WC will put Westbury A350 bypass into next bidding round for 2026-2030. If so, this means that analysing possible routes and outline costs etc would begin in about 2022, so that the bid is fully prepared ready for submission for the 2026-2030 funding period.

[Shizzy]

Is a bypass for Melksham really more important than Westbury.? Their town centre is already by-passed

[Michael]

A question put and point well made by WTCs Mayor Mike Sutton, but in reality the bypass is for Beanacre, the purpose I suppose being that it eases the flow of traffic, as does the Lacock bypass.
As always however road improvement seems to be concentrated on the North of the county nearer to the M4 and it is as always "jam tomorrow" for Westbury.
In this situation Westbury need to campaign and argue for any new housing developments to include plans for traffic relief for Warminster Rd and Haynes Rd, West End and Trowbridge Rd.
It has been suggested that in the future Westbury will have to accept somewhere in the region of another 600 dwellings, maybe some of these will be in Wiltshire Councils plans to provide 1000 council homes.

[baldy]

It strengthens the funding case for a Westbury A350 bypass when other pinch points along the route - all with easier routes to design and obtain planning permission - have already been built / funded.

My understanding of things is that the outcome of the last Westbury Bypass project (Refusal of permission after a long public inquiry even though funding from the SW Regional Assembly was confirmed subject only to planning permission) left a deep scar in the County Hall team and they are keen to avoid that sort of disaster again. Hence doing everything else first and seeking to obtain a sum large enough to cover the cost of (possibly) going the long way around to the west of Westbury.

[baldy]

Over the last few weeks, there has been a series of articles and Letters to the Editor of WHN based on complete and utter nonsense that seems to assume that Wiltshire Council has chosen its route for any future new Westbury A350 bypass.   NB. It has not!

I am not talking about the letter from Dorian Jones which is the one letter that is not pure rubbish based on rubbish.

The whole nonsense that I am referring to starts with a front page article which quotes Cllr Gordon King who appears to have been trying to repeat what Allan Creedy said at the above-mentioned area board meeting about the way forward for a Westbury A350 bypass. When I read what Cllr King is quoted to have said, I felt that either Cllr King was drunk (unlikely) or he was making it all up (maybe) or he was very confused (maybe) or perhaps it was a mix of total confusion by him and then confused editing by WHN leading to an utterly misleading article about nonsense based on pure rubbish.

Cllr King is quoted saying that Wiltshire Council intends to apply for a grant for a bypass going to the east and south of the town so that more housing development would occur on the land between the town and the bypass.

I can tell you that no such thing was said at the meeting and that what Cllr King is talking about can only be pure speculation.

The reality is that Allan Creedy made clear that no route has been chosen yet and that any new bypass project would start with consultations on possible routes and that no route is ruled in or out at this stage. He specifically said that all options would be analysed.

At the area board held on Thursday this week, I got the minutes of the October meeting adjusted to reflect the above reality about what Allan Creedy did say and the 4 person board including both Cllr King and his wife Cllr Mrs King agreed my clarification.  I do wonder if Cllr King will be writing something to retract or clarify the utter nonsense that was printed in the WHN in his name and which has led to utter nonsense in the printed letters section.

[Al]

So, in summary, no bypass, no real plan for a bypass, lots of hot air, we're being shafted again. Yes?

[baldy]

More accurately and usefully:  No bypass yet and the latest round of public discussion has identified the funding route and/or possible timescale to getting one.

I don't represent the ruling administration at County Hall but I am an INDEPENDENT Westbury Unitary Councillor who knows what is going on.  I think it is only fair to remind you that the ruling Conservatives at County Hall did try hard to provide a Westbury A350 bypass during the decade that led up the decision by a Labour Secretary of State to reject planning permission in 2010 after a planning inquiry that was based on the planning rules that Labour had brought in during that same decade.

One of the clear outcomes of the planning inquiry report was that other sections of the A350 had pinch points that needed addressing before a significant impact on the landscape around Westbury could be justified.  So, these other problems are logically being dealt with before another attempt to design a Westbury bypass commences.

Another key issue is that the sheer cost of a longer route for the bypass means that it needs to be funded by Government money, not local funding sources. It is only in very recent years that the likely Government funding sources have emerged and so now the relevant issue to talk about is WHEN can we expect a Westbury A350 bypass to feature in the funding programme. This is what has been explained.

I am sure that you are intelligent enough, Al, to understand the meaning of what has been explained if you actually read it properly.

[Al]

I am sure that you are intelligent enough, Al, to understand the meaning of what has been explained if you actually read it properly.

I am, but I also like summaries. Whatever happened to the proposed rerouting of the A350 from stoney gutter to Yarnbrooke?

[baldy]

It's in the planning stages now and will be built in a few years (before any Westbury bypass).

[Michael]

I am sure that you are intelligent enough, Al, to understand the meaning of what has been explained if you actually read it properly.

I am, but I also like summaries. Whatever happened to the proposed rerouting of the A350 from stoney gutter to Yarnbrooke?

One of the major links will be provided by the Ashton Park development at Yarnbrook, but it still exposes the need for a link via the West Wilts Trading Estate from the A36 avoiding Westbury, Southwick, and North Bradley. Any new road through Ashton Park to join the A350 must be linked to a road bypassing these locations and include removing the pinch point at Yarnbrook.

[baldy]

The new road proposed through the Ashton Park development IS the diversion route or link road that is central to reducing traffic through the Yarnbrook roundabout.

The point of it is to allow traffic from or going to the West Wilts Trading Estate and/or leaving / arriving via Southwick / North Bradley (actually a heavily-used lorry route) to go via the A350 to/from Melksham without using the Yarnbrook roundabout.  It is a stand-alone scheme and is justified without a Westbury Bypass dealing with traffic going / coming further south on the A350.

[Michael]

The new road proposed through the Ashton Park development IS the diversion route or link road that is central to reducing traffic through the Yarnbrook roundabout.

The point of it is to allow traffic from or going to the West Wilts Trading Estate and/or leaving / arriving via Southwick / North Bradley (actually a heavily-used lorry route) to go via the A350 to/from Melksham without using the Yarnbrook roundabout.  It is a stand-alone scheme and is justified without a Westbury Bypass dealing with traffic going / coming further south on the A350.

But in fact as currently planned without a strategic bypass for the other areas, outlined in my previous post, the Yarnbrook pinch point is simply moved some 150 metres North to the area of the Yarnbrook viaduct.
Traffic coming from Westbury via the A350 will meet traffic from Trowbridge, Southwick and North Bradley, together with vehicles from the West Wilts Trading Estate via Hawkeridge Rd and Phillips Way.
The simple, if costly solution to this problem would of course be a road from the A36 at Standerwick linking the West Wilts Trading Estate
bypassing the villages and joining Phillips Way at Yarnbrook, a route favoured by at least one Conservative Wiltshire Councilor.

[baldy]

Having two routes to handle the current traffic through the Yarnbrook roundabout will be a huge improvement for the A350 that goes through the Yarnbrook roundabout. I don’t see the new extra road from near West Ashton crossroads to the roundabout on Phillips Way as any sort of pinch point, busy though it may be at peak hours. It will be a massive improvement on the current situation.

[Michael]

Having two routes to handle the current traffic through the Yarnbrook roundabout will be a huge improvement for the A350 that goes through the Yarnbrook roundabout. I don’t see the new extra road from near West Ashton crossroads to the roundabout on Phillips Way as any sort of pinch point, busy though it may be at peak hours. It will be a massive improvement on the current situation.

Perhaps you miss the point that HG traffic from the West Wilts Trading Estate going South will still use Hawkeridge Rd, Yarnbrook, and the volume of this traffic is ever increasing. I do accept that the traffic lights at West Ashton are the cause of some delay, but HG traffic travelling East from North Bradley will meet traffic from Trowbridge coming through the White Horse Business Park. There are currently moves afoot to have traffic calming measures at Woodmarsh, North Bradley, and plans to add some 200 house in North Bradley.