HOT NEWS - What a difference an election makes!

I e-mailed Fabian Richter - would-be MP for Bath - about all this. First of all I got a brush-off, but then I sent him an irate letter from a fellow protester which told a few home truths about the council's role in this planning fiasco. I pointed out that at the speed things were moving, partly thanks to Mr Webber's ill-judged remarks, the whole thing could blow up in the council's face BEFORE the election - and as it's a Tory Council and he's a Tory, this could be very bad news for him. I had an immediate response - the councillor in charge has been told to meet me.

Watch this space.

How to upset a senior planning official.

When I sent in my objections to the station, I fired them off to lots of people as well as planning. This included Mr Geoff Webber, Senior Planning Officer. He was less than happy with my comments, as I realised when I got a reply which included this extraordinary statement:

Please note that as this is an application for Listed Building Consent, the relevant Regulations dictate that we will in due course determine this application with regard only to its impact upon the special character of this Listed Building. The issues that you have raised are without exception in respect of matters that cannot be given weight in considering this application, and which are the responsibility of the rail operators who as joint Applicants have designed their proposals so as to meet their operational requirements.

Since there is no full application - which would normally match a listed building application for mere mortals and not Multi development - this means that no one can comment to say we think your proposals stink.

Lets hope the Chronicle is brave enough to print my letter on this subject. If not, you can read it below.

In a recent edition of the Guardian, Jonathan Glancey wrote that, under New Labour, acclaimed public sector projects have been hoovered up by big, commercially driven architectural firms. It is certainly what we have seen in Bath – to which I would add the big, commercially driven developers.

What is happening at Bath Spa Station is a case in point. Once the plans were released, I saw immediately that there were serious drawbacks, especially for the disabled, and said so. First of all Multi contacted me, said it was up to Network Rail (NR) to sort it out and as NR wasn’t talking to them, could I try? I know this sounds surreal: “We’re a big multi-national company and NR won’t listen to us, can Ms Unknown Voice from Bath try?” but that’s what I was asked.

Other voices raised the same issues. We were ignored or told we were mad or alarmist. So in the end I went to the Department for Transport (DfT) and lobbied in all sorts of places so that eventually the safety experts looked at it and decided I was right. Changes are being made – but they are minimal and in my opinion do not tackle the problem.

It isn’t just the issue of disabled access – I think that many people in Bath do not realise how badly they will be affected if the plans go ahead – but what is frustrating to myself and those in the disabled lobby is the way in which these changes are being done in their name, ignoring their pleas to keep the ramp because it actually assists disabled access. The DDA is being misquoted and misused to get the plans through. The ramp does not need to be DDA compliant – it is a roadway, as the new Design and Access statement admits, which offers level access to the platform. However, there is no doubt that the up platform needs a lift – yet persistently the lift offered is the bare minimum. If the parties to this development – Multi, First Great Western (FGW) and B&NES - were genuinely interested in what the disabled want they would firstly listen to their voices and secondly, they would go back to the old lift shaft, which would give a much larger lift. Yet they won’t. Why? Because they would have to close down Dashi – the site of the old lift shaft has been lost to commercial interest.

And that’s what all this is about. The reason the ramp must come down is nothing to do with disabled access – it’s because the developers have realised they can make more money by removing it. They can build another café – not accessible from the station – where the car park once was and let it out. They have played the heritage card: “Look, we’re going to open up Brunel’s wonderful vaults.” Except that these vaults were never meant to be seen and in doing so they are sweeping away the oldest part of the station. So much for heritage! But they will be able to let the vaults out to even more paying tenants.

Yes, the ramp is at present an eyesore – but it need not be if it were properly landscaped and cleaned up. There are many things that could improve the station, its access and exits and above all its safety, for all users but we’re not going to be offered them because no one would make money out of them.

If Multi and FGW would put their hands up to this and say, yes, our shareholders are more important to us than the people of Bath, I would actually have respect for them. They do, in fact, have obligations to their shareholders which I can see they need to fulfil. But B&NES Council has no such excuse. It is there to represent us and it isn’t. I have even received an e-mail from the Senior Planning Officer telling me that my objections to these latest plans are: “without exception in respect of matters that cannot be given weight in considering this application, and which are the responsibility of the rail operators who as joint Applicants have designed their proposals so as to meet their operational requirements.” This is because it is a listed building application. So where is the matching full application that you or I, Dear Reader, would have to submit in similar circumstances? There isn’t one. Which apparently invalidates any chance we have to say “Whoa, hang on a minute, here!” however unsuitable, inconvenient or disadvantageous the plans are.

Many people believe –and I am one of them - that B&NES is cosying up to the developers instead of listening to us. As Jonathan Glancey said, politicians should start thinking of public good rather than private gain. I couldn’t agree more.

Why do I have the strange feeling this isn't going to make Mr Webber feel any better?

The Station Saga continues

At last the developers acknowledged that the plans for the station are inherently unsafe - after the Office of the Rail Regulator demanded a safety investigation. So now B&NES amd Multi are trying to rush through other plans, still stubbornly refusing to acknowledge that the ramp is the safest solution. However, to do so, they have actually had to put in a proper planning application to which people can respond. Here are my objections - if you wish to use them, feel free to do so. This is a slightly fuller objection - to squeeze it down to the 6000 characters requested by B&NES I had to cut it a little.

By the way, the entrance to the lift lobby - for those in wheelchairs, with luggage, or cycles, will be through the doorway now marked Pumpkin - loadsa room, huh! Should be quite a scrum.

Before commencing my objection to this application, I should, perhaps, state my credentials for making it. My late mother was, for many years, crippled with arthritis, and when osteoporosis was added to this, she had to use a wheelchair. Sadly, in recent years, my own mobility has worsened due to arthritis in one knee. I have also spoken with many other people with a variety of incapacities, including Parkinson’s Disease. I am, therefore, acutely conscious of the difficulties faced by those with limited mobility, and their preferred options for access to the up platform, most of which are being ignored by those involved with these plans, even though the changes are being made in their name.

I also trained as a systems analyst, and I have given careful consideration to all the proposed plans for the station, and I find them riddled with flaws. This opinion is shared by a respected local architect, Anthony Pearson, whom I consulted over this. He has identified even more flaws than I had, and has made B&NES and Multi aware of them. I wish it to be made clear that in making these objections, firstly, I do know and have researched what I am talking about and secondly, Heritage, which appears to have become a dirty word to the Major Developments Team, plays no part in my objections. Indeed, one radical solution my husband, Dr Andrew Swift – who has written extensively about Brunel’s station - has proposed is to completely demolish the existing station and build a better one. I feel sure that this is the option Brunel would favour. However, I suspect that English Heritage and other conservation groups would resist this.
Finally, I am a regular user of the station.

My objections to these proposals are as follows:
THE LIFT. The lift is no larger than the previous proposed lift. This means that not only are the needs of cyclists still being ignored, but, much more seriously, in the event of someone being on a stretcher, the only way to remove them from the up platform, once the ramp is removed, would be to carry them across the line. This must be unacceptable.
Although these changes are made in the name of the disabled, it seems strange that those involved in the work are only supplying the bare minimum required under the DDA. This does not send the message that there is a genuine interest in the needs of the disabled. On top of that, it means that although it says it is a 10-person lift, it takes no account of wheelchairs, push-chairs, cyclists and those with a large amount of luggage. Given the large numbers of people who use this station, this lift is clearly inadequate.

THE NEW STAIRS. While a new exit is essential if the ramp is to be removed, this design of stair could hardly be worse. I can only assume that whoever designed this has not stood, as I have, on the up platform at about 5 o’clock. It is almost impossible to get off incoming trains, due to the press of people. The exit via the ramp is a safety valve in the best sense of the word, being entirely safe, with a wide gateway, and a level walk to a gentle slope. These stairs are winding and as steep, if not steeper, than the existing stairs. If, in the typical press of people, someone trips and falls, the results would clearly be disastrous.

ACCESS to the lift/stair lobby. This is less than a metre across. Thus, fighting their way through this doorway will be: those in wheelchairs, parents with children in pushchairs, cyclists, and those with luggage, in addition to those choosing to use the stairs. The size of this doorway seems designed to deter people from using these facilities rather than encouraging them.
In addition to this, it should be noted that the original stairs, the new exit and the emergency exit beyond it into the proposed Unit 5 are all at the western end of the station. If there is a fire at this end of the station – and with a café included in this section, that has to be considered a possibility – then there will be no escape from the other end of the platform other than passing the seat of the fire or crossing the line to the other platform.

CONCLUSION. The Design and Access statement says: The alternative locations presented within this report are the only viable alternative positions which the design team feel could either accommodate an operational lift, whilst minimising impact on the existing listed building fabric.

This is manifest nonsense. First of all, it is clear that retaining the ramp is the simplest and easiest solution. I am aware that the architects keep reiterating that it is not DDA compliant. This is at best misleading and at worst wrong. Firstly, as the D&A statement admits, it is a roadway rather than a pedestrian ramp, therefore the DDA does not apply. Thus, access from this roadway is level, and a ramp is not needed – the building thus fulfils the access rules under the DDA. Moreover, there is disabled parking at this level, access for emergency vehicles and easy access for cycles and those with large amounts of luggage arriving at this level by taxi, all of which benefits will be lost if the ramp is removed.

However, it could contain a pedestrian right of way – many people, including myself, use it as one already – when the DDA would become relevant. But it is not too steep – the architects’ own drawings show that – it merely lacks the required resting places. If parking were removed from the ramp, it would be possible to build them. I will not go into my complete plans for this, which would offer a far better station than that now proposed, including a larger and more readily accessible lift, as this is not the place – suffice it to say that retaining the ramp offers a far better and very much safer experience for users of the station than that proposed plans, though I accept that it will not fulfil the aspirations of the commercial interests involved in this development. I respectfully submit, however, as a user of the station, that passengers’ needs should come before commercial gain.

However, if, despite these obvious benefits, the various developers are set on destroying the ramp, then the obvious thing to do is to go to the old lift shaft. This would mean the loss of Dashi restaurant, but the proposals contain the reduction of the more widely used Pumpkin Café – a further cutting back of the facilities for users under these plans. Therefore, it would make more sense to reduce Dashi. Added to which, a stairway could be added at this end. This would then overcome the problems with emergency exit, and as the old lift was larger, would probably solve a number of other difficulties as well.

Unless those involved with these mad plans do not back down, then it will begin to appear that public need is being sacrificed to commercial greed. I would like to think that that is not true, and that common sense will finally prevail.