The Bradley Stoke Journal

Work is due to begin today (Monday 19th July) on a Council-run park and ride site at Hunts Ground Road, Stoke Gifford, close to Parkway Station.

The facility, which will cater for up to 200 cars, is being built on the site of an old brick works on the north-west side of Hunts Ground Round [map] between the Esporta gym and Parkway Station.

South Gloucestershire Council puts the estimated construction time at 32 weeks, with completion scheduled for March 2011.

The car park will include lighting and a CCTV system and the gates will be locked at night and opened early in the morning to enhance security.

Parking charges at the new facility will be £5 a day during the week and £3 a day at weekends. Payment machines will accept credit/debit cards only. By comparison, the official APCOA car park at Parkway Station (capacity: 1140 cars) currently charges £6.90 on weekdays and £4.80 on Saturday and Sunday.

Cllr Brian Allinson, Executive Member for Planning, Transportation and Strategic Environment said:

“This is an exciting step in the provision of improved public transport facilities in South Gloucestershire and will provide much needed car parking for those commuters wishing to access the many bus and rail services that call at Parkway.”

The capacity of the current park and ride scheme is much reduced from that envisaged in earlier plans. The Council lost an option on land on the opposite side of Hunts Ground Road, which had originally been earmarked for the scheme, by failing to meet the required Section 106 trigger dates.

Then, the discovery of a colony of the locally rare small blue butterfly on the current site meant that the number of parking spaces had to be reduced by one third in order to leave sufficient space for kidney vetch, the species’ larval food plant, to flourish.

Read on for details of proposed new parking restrictions in Hunts Ground Road »

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Bradley Stoke Town Councillors have successfully fought off plans to install a ‘raised table’ cycle crossing on Baileys Court Road, which they claimed would have caused damage to vehicles and hindered emergency vehicles.

South Gloucestershire Council (SGC), which had proposed the feature as part of its Cycling City Route 3 scheme, has agreed to alter the crossing to use a dropped kerb design. The 5m wide crossing will now be constructed level with the existing road surface and be painted green.

The U-turn comes after one Town Councillor described the proposed crossing as an “obstruction of the highway”, while another claimed it was a back door way of imposing a lower speed limit for motorists.

SGC says it considered the alternative of installing a signal-controlled crossing but the estimated cost of £100k would have been “far beyond budget”. A zebra crossing, although cheaper, would “not be ideal for cyclists” it added.

The concession was accompanied by a request for the Town Council to contribute towards the cost of re-siting of a nearby bus stop and shelter, said to be needed to improve road safety.

That plea fell on deaf ears as the Town Clerk was instructed to inform SGC that “in the current financial climate, the Town Council would be unable to make any contribution”.

A similar ‘level’ crossing to the one now foreseen for Baileys Court Road is currently being installed in Fiddlers Wood Lane (pictured above), close to its junction near the Savages Wood Roundabout on Bradley Stoke Way.

Another crossing, this time part of Cycling City Route 4, is to be constructed across Brook Way, close to its junction with The Common (East).

Roadworks at the Aztec West Roundabout on the A38 Gloucester Road are set to continue for “two to three weeks” according to an unofficial source at South Gloucestershire Council (SGC).

Signs notifying motorists of impending work to install a bus lane on the northbound carriageway of the A38 south of the roundabout had been displayed in the vicinity for a number of weeks but many drivers were taken by surprise when lane restrictions were imposed on the roundabout itself on Monday morning.

The closure of one of the three lanes on the roundabout between the Bradley Stoke Way and Aztec West Business Park exits led to massive tailbacks, stretching back onto to the M4 and M5 motorways during the morning rush hour.

The work is also having a knock-on effect on traffic leaving Bradley Stoke, with longer than normal tailbacks being experienced along Bradley Stoke Way.

Traffic leaving the business park during the evening peak hours is also being affected due to the closure of one of the three lanes exiting onto the roundabout.

The work being done on the roundabout itself will add an extra general traffic lane for northbound traffic on the A38 making a right turn into Bradley Stoke Way.

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Work has started on the installation of real-time information displays at bus shelters on the showcase no. 73 route in Bradley Stoke.

Shiny new silver bus shelters were erected along the route last year, replacing the familiar green shelters seen elsewhere in the town.

In contrast to the old shelters, the new shelters have been funded by the Greater Bristol Bus Network (GBBN) and will be maintained by South Gloucestershire Council (SGC) rather than Bradley Stoke Town Council.

Each of the new shelters incorporates an equipment box intended to allow the connection of a real time information display and the first of these, at the shelter opposite the surgery on Brook Way, is now being wired up with an electricity supply.

A spokesperson at SGC confirmed to The Journal that work to install the real-time displays has started and is set to be completed in the 2010/2011 financial year.

Elsewhere on the 73 route, work is about to start on a new northbound bus lane on the A38 Gloucester Road between Little Stoke and the Aztec West Roundabout. The work is expected to take six months, with the projected completion date currently set at 6th October.

Bradley Stoke Councillors have given a further thumbs down to plans for cycle crossings in the town despite compromises being made by South Gloucestershire Council (SGC) following the Town Council’s earlier objection.

SGC now says it is prepared to abandon plans for a ‘raised table’ crossing on Fiddlers Wood Lane, close to the Bradley Stoke Way roundabout, replacing it with a ‘kerb build out’ scheme.

But the District Council is adamant that a similar proposed crossing on Baileys Court Road, between its junctions with Sherbourne Avenue and Meadow Way [Street View], should go ahead.

The length of the raised crossing proposed by SGC has been increased to 6m, so that bus passengers will not experience a bumpy ride.

Cllr Robert Jones described the proposed crossing on Baileys Court Road as “an obstruction of the highway”, adding that he would object to “anything that slows the traffic below the legal speed limit”, while Cllr John Ashe said installation of the same crossing would effectively mean “introducing a [lower] speed limit by the back door”.

Councillors voted to inform SGC of their continued objection to the Baileys Court Road scheme and requested that a light controlled crossing be installed in its place.

It is likely that the matter will now have to be decided by SGC’s Executive Member for Transport.

In the meantime, construction work connected with Cycling City Route 3 (of which the crossings form part) is well underway. A new footpath/cycleway has been completed south of Savages Wood Roundabout and work has now commenced on widening the footpath along Bradley Stoke Way, north of the Willow Brook Centre.