News

The B&NES Conservative Cabinet will decide today (25 January 2017) whether to build an East of Bath park and ride on the Bathampton water meadows. Lib Dem opposition Councillors are attending the crunch Cabinet meeting to speak out against the plans.

Papers for next week’s Special Cabinet meeting, which will decide on the location of the East of Bath park and ride, have been published today. 

A Cabinet decision to spend a further £300,000 on consultants’ fees in preparation for the East of Bath Park and Ride will be considered by a Council watchdog panel next week, even though requests by opposition councillors for a formal challenge process were refused.

Liberal Democrats in B&NES are speaking out against proposals included in the emerging West of England Joint Spatial Plan (JSP) for a bypass to the South of Saltford.

B&NES Council's Conservative Cabinet has voted to go ahead with the West of England Combined Authority. The vote was taken on the same day as the two other Councils in the new authority: Bristol and South Gloucestershire. The three Councils will now go ahead with new devolution arrangements under a directly elected Metro Mayor.

With the December meeting of B&NES Cabinet having been cancelled, no decision can now be taken on the site of the East of Bath Park and Ride this calendar year.

Virgin Care has been confirmed as the prime provider of community health and social care services in Bath and North East Somerset from 2 April 2017, following a vote by B&NES Council on 10 November 2016.

Lib Dem Councillors are objecting to the blocking, by the Conservative ruling party, of a debate on education at B&NES Council yesterday evening.

Two members of the public were unable to make statements at a meeting of B&NES Council on 10 November, due to election period rules, and a request for a short debate on the East of Bath park and ride was timed out by the ruling Conservative administration.

Action is being taken to ban motorbikes from Victoria Bridge following a year of pressure from local Councillor Andrew Furse. Since the bridge was reopened to the public there has been an increasing problem of motorcycles and mopeds using the pedestrian bridge as a short cut between Upper and Lower Bristol Roads.