So just how big is this new lift?

A mystery has surfaced with respect to the size of the lift on the up platform. A spokesperson from Network Rail informed Don Foster MP that the new one is 1100 x 1800 mm. Well, that's not what they have got planning permission for. The plans - even those slipped through at the last moment to invalidate any objections that might have been considered pertinent - not only show the drawings marked clearly 1100 x 1500, it's even there in writing. So I thought I'd better let my contact in the ORR know that Network Rail has got it wrong. Oh no, says he, the new lift is definitely 1100 x 1800. So I've sent him the plans. As this all happened last night, which was a Friday, I haven't heard back, but this is all very odd.

So what is happening? Well, it could just be an error. The lift shaft is 1880 x 2000, which as you can see is significantly larger than the lift itself, to allow for all the bits and bobs that lifts have on the outside. So perhaps someone has just misread it.

But it does leave the more suspicious of us wondering if something else is going on here. To accommodate the larger lift, the shaft size would also need to be increased by at least 30 cms - that's about 1 foot in £sd. Now Varian Tye, the Heritage team officer, made it clear in his report that he was unhappy at the amount of demolition, but had been persuaded to allow it through. Reading the English Heritage letter carefully, it is clear they had a similar view. They stated that if there were any more significant changes, they wanted to know, and might demand that the plan went to the Secretary of State - all of which would introduce delays and uncertainties.

The larger lift would have meant a doorway within the listed historic material being changed, so both Varian and EH were very likely to dig their toes in. What's more, the proprietors of the cafe have already lost some space, and the larger lift would have meant a further loss of storage space. I suspect they would have objected too.

So was the idea to build the smaller lift and then say "Oops we made it too small but that's all we had permission for"? Or was it the reverse? Were they going to build a larger lift and then say "Oops we made it too large - but then you all wanted a larger lift so what's the problem?"

Well, my meeting with the MD of FGW isn't far away, so I hope to get to the bottom of it all. I also hope to find out just who owns what around the station and who is calling the shots. One really has to wonder if anyone is in overall charge of this project. I have found out, for example, that Network Rail was unaware of some of the changes proposed by FGW and Multi at the front of the station and is minded to object. I also found out from B&NES some other facts of which the ORR were unaware. Weird as it sounds, I now seem to be acting as a sorting office for information between the various partners, since, one way and another, most of what's going on seems to end up on my desk. And it doesn't seem to be ending up with such regularity on theirs.

As I remarked to my contacts at the DfT and the ORR, this whole project is looking more and more like an out-of-control octopus, in which none of the arms knows what the other arms are doing. Let's hope I can untangle some of the knots that the octopus seems to be tying itself up into.

Stop Press - the MD of FGW responds

Late yesterday afternoon, I received a response from Mark Hopwood, MD of FGW, saying he had instructed his PA to contact me with a view to setting up a meeting. So fair play to him for that. I hope that it will be a positive and friendly meeting, and that the result will be a station which really will be an improvement for all travellers. If anyone feels that there are issues that I have not covered in previous blogs or letters to the Chronicle, then please contact me, through this blog.

Bath Spa Station - the fight continues!

It came as no surprise to anyone that the plans submitted for the lift on the up platform at Bath Spa Station were nodded through. It was clear from the start that they would be, though what went on does not cover B&NES in glory. Indeed, I sometimes wonder if the Major Developments Team actually wants the people of Bath to mutter the c-word - that's a 10-letter word, not 4 letters. Perhaps it gives them some kind of macho glow. First of all, despite being a listed building, the listed building officer of considerable seniority who is allegedly in charge of the plans for the station was not given the job - instead it was given to a planning officer - not from the heritage team, though the station is regarded as being of national importance - who has a history of ignoring heritage. It was thanks to her that the seventeenth century Burnt House Inn was consigned to history, and buildings of mind-numbing blandness erected in its place. She also ignored the vast number of objections to the lift plans, and the unhappy report from the snubbed listed building officer, who was clearly under pressure to agree to it. So congratulations, Varian Tye, for coming as close as you dare to saying you thought it was a bad idea. And no congratulations at all to English Heritage for being such a broken reed.

However, it didn't end there. New drawings were submitted shortly before the decision was taken, thus invalidating the objections. Clever stuff, especially as they didn't go up on the website until about a day or two before the decision was taken, so that no one would notice. Even so, the decision was taken twenty four hours before the statutory consultation time on these new drawings had elapsed, so planning permission has been granted improperly. The drawings are dated 11th May so no decision should have been taken until 25th May, but in fact it was taken the day before, on 24th May. Strangely enough, this was within a couple of hours of my spotting the new drawings and making a comment on the Chron website that everyone needed to slam in new objections. It appears that no one was going to be given the evening to make further cogent objections. To cover this up, the Decision Notice on the website is dated 25th May, but open it up, and you'll find the date of the decsion is 24th.

Despite the delay in getting documents up - some letters dated 11th May did not go up until after the decision was taken - the objections were removed faster than you would have believed possible.

What of my meeting with the council? Well, Cllr Gazzard and his project manager were both very friendly and understanding, and promised me a proper reply to my points in a week. About a month later, I am still waiting. So I have now started lobbying Mark Hopwood - he's the MD of FGW. I've sent off an e-mail today, in response to his somewhat terse reply to a previous mail I sent him, and I have invited him to talk to me. Yes, I said a bit more than that - such as pointing out to him that his plans are hopelessly flawed, and he must know it, and also that the DfT and the ORR think I'm worth listening too ( a fact of which he must be all too well aware) so why doesn't he actually set up a meeting and talk to me face to face? I've pointed out that I've had strangers come up to me on the platform and congratulate me on what I'm doing and I wondered if the same happened to him. I told him straight I doubted it.

Let's see if he really does want to listen to what people are saying. In the meantime, if you think that what went on over planning application 10/01383/LBA was a disgrace which brings B&NES into disrepute - and I believe that it does - then please write to John Everett, the Chief Executive of B&NES. For the moment, I am choosing not to make a formal complaint - I want to add it to a general list of what has happened in the wider scheme at SouthGate, and I am collecting evidence about the way in which local people are treated differently from developers - an offence under the Human Rights Act. But please start pestering. Above all, if you think that the plans will make the station less safe, keep bombarding the ORR - they really are listening. One again, here are the contact details.

Office of Rail Regulation
One Kemble Street
London
WC2B 4AN

Tel: 020 7282 2000

Email: contact.cct@orr.gsi.gov.uk

GET WRITING, PHONING or E-MAILING!

Meeting at the Guildhall

I had a very amicable meeting with Cllr Terry Gazzard and Simon Martin - not the Man from Multi, as I thought, but the project manager. I've promised Simon I would let him respond to the points that I raised with them, so my report on that will be next week. However, it does appear that many of the changes are being driven by First Great Western, who are happily keeping their heads down and letting everyone else take the flack.

The other point is that I know many people have contacted me over this, and asked me to keep up the good work,but as far as some authorities are concerned, I am just one person - why should they take any notice of me? So if you feel strongly about this, I think you need to start pushing, and the only people now who will be able to put pressure on FGW is the Office of Rail Regulation. So they are the ones to contact. I think we should be campaigning for FGW to lose its franchise. None of the train companies is faultless, but FGW really doesn't seem to care about its passengers.

It's not just the cramped conditions - we were on a train the day before yesterday, and some of the seats were so close together that I don't see how larger size people could have sat in them. But it's the way they treat people who don't fit into their vision of the ideal traveller. I am becoming increasingly convinced that a lot of these changes at Bath Spa are to deter cyclists, whom FGW seems to dislike heartily. I am told that some guards will only let two bikes on to some trains, and some guards refuse to take them at all. I suspect, too, that wheelchair passengers and those with mobility problems, who require special assistance from station staff are also regarded as a pain, and the changes at Bath Spa may will deter them. FGW's policy is to run stations on as few staff as possible, so you can see that if, like my late Mum, you needed help to get on the train, that means you are messing up this corporate plan. What really annoys me is that they are using the very act that was designed to protect people like my Mum to put them off using the station!

So, I think it's now time for you, the reader, to contact the ORR, expressing your views. Here are the contact details.

Office of Rail Regulation
One Kemble Street
London
WC2B 4AN

Tel: 020 7282 2000

Email: contact.cct@orr.gsi.gov.uk

GET WRITING, PHONING or E-MAILING!

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.