South Gloucestershire | Archive | 2005 | December | 2
From the archive, first published Friday 2nd Dec 2005.
THREE Winterbourne councillors have hit out at Bristol City Council for supporting a park and ride scheme planned for Green Belt land in South Gloucestershire.
The councillors issued a joint statement criticising Bristol City Council's decision last week to support the park and ride scheme in Hambrook.
Cllrs David Fletcher, John Godwin and Allan Higgs, who have led the campaign for other sites for the park and ride and are against the Hambrook proposals, said in a joint statement: "We cannot believe that Bristol City Council is trying to inflict a giant car park on Green Belt land in South Gloucestershire, which would not take one single car off any road in our area and would in fact increase traffic locally."
The statement added: "We have been campaigning to replace this appalling proposal with one which benefits both our areas for years and yet Bristol insists on ploughing ahead with a scheme which might benefit them but would create a traffic nightmare and environmental devastation in South Gloucestershire."
The councillors drew attention to a public inquiry in 2003, when a Government inspector refused to support the allocation of Hambrook as a park and ride site. The report warned that building the giant car park would create traffic chaos by drawing even more vehicles into the already heavily-congested Hambrook junction.
The report also warned that the Avon Ring Road near Emerson's Green, the M32 and possibly even the M4 would not be able to take the thousands of extra cars and would grind to a halt.
Cllrs Fletcher, Godwin and Higgs, who all serve on Winterbourne Parish Council, which covers Hambrook, said: "We are very concerned that if a park and ride were built here it would create irresistible pressure to strip all of the land west of the M32 of Green Belt protection and concrete it over, as we know regional planning chiefs are considering doing."
However, spokesman for Bristol City Council Simon Caplan said that the council had always asserted that it makes logical sense to develop a park and ride site somewhere close to the junctions of the M32, M4 and A4174 ring road.
And he added: "At this stage there are no definite plans for a park and ride site at Hambrook. We are keen to work in partnership with South Gloucestershire Council over this and other transport issues."
He added: "Our view is that while those discussions are continuing nothing should be ruled out and this includes the Hambrook site."
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