Great to see that the Wellsway element of the ‘Somer Valley Links’ project has been included for development in the Full Business case.

It is one of 3 ‘corridor’ programmes in development by the West of England Combined Authority (WECA). All 3 are as follows:

• Somer Valley Links (SVL)
• A4 Bristol – Bath
• Bath City Centre

The Wellsway link is very important as it will ultimately tie together Scholars Way, the 2 Tunnels route and routes to/from the city centre. It is one of the shallowest gradient hills we have in Bath and is really wide compared to most, giving space to provide for safe and pleasant walking, wheeling and cycling. Outline plans are given on the consultation website, but these are ‘early days’ and subject to change.

The funding comes from the 2022-2027 City Region Sustainable Transport Settlement (CRSTS), signed off by Grant Shapps in 2022. This settlement was intended to give the regional mayors something more like the funding levels and certainty enjoyed by the likes of Transport for London, an element of the ‘levelling up’ agenda. The fact that Boris is now out of post but CRSTS has 3 more year to run, goes to show why pin balling around from being very supportive to public transport and active travel, to talking about a ‘war on motorists’ is such a headache for anyone involved in strategy. One can only hope that after the general election a degree of consensus can be agreed about the direction of transport provision…

It is worth noting these levels of funding are unprecedented in recent times, to the extent that councillors do not always seem to believe that there really are millions of pounds ready to be invested in their ward. To give context, the councillor ’empowerment fund’ is £5k per year. Councillors cannot even secure new litter bins- they are only allowed to shuffle around what they have so there is no net gain (net zero bin growth?). This is a relatively new landscape that comes with new ‘rules’ administered by WECA. And in any game, you have to play by the rules…

Back to SVL, the Full Business Case will now worked up by March 2025 with construction starting in September 2025 and complete by the end of 2026. That is pretty tight given the money has to be spent by, er… the end of 2026! Why? Because in 2027 the next CRSTS period starts- CRSTS2. More of that to come…

Here is a summary of the project prepared for BANES by a senior officer. You can also read a very comprehensive document (the Outline Business Case) on the WECA website.