Plans for new bus lanes have been shelved – and could take a decade to install

New bus lanes planned for North Somerset should be rolled out over a period of up to a decade – not two to three years – the council’s transport boss has said.

The council has installed four bus lane schemes around the borough since being handed £48 million in government ‘bus service improvement plan’ (BSIP) funding in 2022, starting with the one on the beltway Long Ashton bypass a year ago. But last month the council halted the rollout of the rest of the planned bus lanes until November – after warnings from the public and councilors that the lanes were causing more trouble than they were worth.

Now North Somerset Council’s executive member for highways and transport, Hannah Young (Clevedon South, Labour) said the local authority would have to implement the schemes over a period of up to a decade.

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She told a full council meeting on May 14: “The volume of schemes we’re trying to deliver is really challenging and those kinds of changes we should be looking at on a seven to 10-year basis, not for two to three years. so we wanted to look at the break now and make sure we understand how these schemes work to fuel the next stage.”

The council is to review its strategy for using the funding in a ‘BSIP refresh’. Dr Young said the council would focus “less” on bus lanes and said: “(We’re) looking at other aspects of bus priority, which includes things like infrastructure around bus stops and waiting areas and “first and last mile”. to get to a bus stop that I know has appeared especially in rural areas.”

She was answering a question from Thomas Daw (Wrington, Green) on the Brockley Combe junction, the latest BSIP scheme. He said: “With the Brockley junction having been put to sleep for a few months now, residents and I are still deeply concerned about the safety and serviceability of traffic coming from Weston.

“I’m told again it’s a matter of signaling. Is this still the case or do we need to look at other approaches to fix this? And what lessons can we take from that to put into the BSIP refresh and make sure we don’t have these kinds of problems again?”

Dr Young said CCTV was collected at the junction and “did not raise any safety concerns”, but said work was still being carried out at the junction, with additional markings due to be painted to ensure cars travel in available space. , and other changes to be worked on with “smart lights” in the coming month. She said: “Until all these things are done, I don’t think we’re in a position to say it’s over, it’s stretched and it’s not working.”

She added that “lessons learned from Brockley” would be discussed at a meeting of the council’s transport, climate and communities scrutiny committee on June 27, along with the other three BSIP schemes: the Long Ashton bus bypass, bus lanes from Barrow Gurney on the A38 and the bus lane on Abbots Leigh Road.