Yate Bus Station - not only wet, but also too small!!
A quick follow-up from the emergency meeting Lib Dem councillors called last Tuesday.
There is yet another major flaw in the bus station design. Yate Town Councillor Chris Willmore commented "It is bad enough that the technical design teams involved have designed something that is useless as a bus shelter, but now we are being told the bus station is too small. It has no scope to take extra buses!"
"As residents and local councillors we demanded a meeting with reps from First Bus, South Glos, Dominion and Tesco. Rather than focus on which of them was responsible for this mess, we urged them to focus on finding a solution"
"Tesco and Dominion were committed to getting a solution quickly. South Glos unfortunately started talking about the fact a change would need planning consent, which would take 6 to 8 weeks. We sent them off to find a solution to cut through that bureaucracy. I have since spoken with the Director of Planning and Transportation to urge him to get the bureacracy sorted. We simply want Tesco/Dominion and South Glos Council experts to sit round a table and agree a solution. Tesco and Dominion were up for that, but it has been proving tricky to get SGC officials round a table"
"What we have demanded is a temporary solution whilst the bureacracy goes through - something that gives us protection from the wind and rain, lights that work, connection to cctv coverage - and bus times"
"The interactive bus signs should be here in April. We have warned SGC that if they end up putting in that expensive technology befgore they have got the basics right, like shelter from the rain THEY will have to account to the public. The public quite rightly want to be DRY as their first step"
"We have been getting terrible complaints from elderly folk drenched to the skin waiting for the bus"
"At the meeting we also persuaded South Glos to consult local coach firms about the traffic order that will ban them from the bus station - to find out the level of need, and find a slot on the town centre for them e.g. by the leisure centre. We asked why they could not use the bus station - and were told it is because all 5 bays are needed for buses, and that the bays are only just enough for CURRENT bus services. If we get any more buses (and we are trying to get a round Yate bus) there will be no room. So space cannot be given to the coach companies"
"Can you believe a council and developer designing a bus station barely big enough for current traffic, with no room for expansion? It is just incredible. How much are the highway experts paid to plan this?"
Surely the Town Councillors had access to all of the planning documents (as did the general public) before the construction of the new bus station took place?
ReplyDeleteIt may have flaws, but it's a little late to start complaining about the planning - the town council approved those very plans!
As for the quote "How much are the highway experts paid to plan this?" - hopefully more than the council that gave us the road scheme successes such as Cranleigh Court Road, the £60k Shire Way speed bumps that cost £90k to remove, and the traffic lights, roundabout, traffic lights combination at the junction of Church Road and Station Road. Always such a pleasure to queue at in rush hour.
I think Simon misunderstands the planning application process. The planning authority is South Glos, not the Town Council. And the grounds for turning a planning application down are very restricted - it's not enough to say "It won't work".
ReplyDeleteAs for the other schemes - memories are short. People forget for example that local councillors objected to the Shire Way humps.
And the main reason that people are queuing in the rush hour is our poor public transport service and hence over-reliance on cars.
Paul, Simon is correct in his assumption. Yate Town Council never objected to the bus station design and their are many grounds on which they could have done so in order to subject offical comments. (Out of keeping with the local area for example.) While they might not have had the power to overturn the application single handedly, they could have communicated directly with South Glos and Tesco officals, and asked the application to be amended in order to provide us with a decent shelter. If, in contrast, they supported the design of the shelter it is very 'Jumping on a bandwagon' for them to suddenly turn around now and object.
ReplyDelete- Mike Dollin, Independent Candidate, Yate West.
MIke, you know perfectly well that Yate Town Council did NOT support the design at planning application stage. As soon as we saw the detail we started to campaign to get it reversed. We could not have objected on the basis of out of keeping - that would not have had an effect. The problem with the station is the detail and those (or rather the lack of the glass) was not shown on the plans filed, if yu look at that. Nobody in their right minds would have suspected the designs were showing thin air, not glass. Just what idiot would design a bus shelter without sides. As soon as we realised there were not going to be sides, I started to make a fuss, and we managed to get the key players round a table. If you go to the facebook site, you will see the most recent events - where the Focus Team are working to solve the problem.We objected the day it was clear no glass was coming in. Mike, I hate to say it, but you are the johnny come lately. You did not object, and only joined in when you decided to stand as a independent in the election after you were unsuccessful in getting selected as a Lib Dem candidate.
ReplyDelete