DECLARING an area from Filton to Emersons Green a ‘new town’ would being extra funding and powers to help sort out transport problems, councillors have been told.
Recently the government decided to designate Brabazon and the West Innovation Arc as one of seven new towns across the country.
The area stretches from the old Filton Airfield, where thousands of homes and an indoor arena are being built, along the Avon Ring Road to the Bristol & Bath Science Park in Emersons Green.
Leading South Glos councillors said during a cabinet meeting in May that the designation should bring an end to the area’s terrible congestion.
Cabinet member for planning, regeneration and infrastructure Chris Willmore said: “If you’ve ever been in the North Fringe in rush hour, you don’t need to be told it’s a traffic challenge.
“That’s because generations of new housing and economic growth have taken place without investing properly in infrastructure. And that has to stop now. It has to be a completely new start, in which we turn the tide on 50 years of neglect of the traffic and transport issues in the North Fringe.”
Cllr Willmore (Lib Dem, Yate North) said investment in public transport is already paying off, with more buses and trains being introduced, including the new Brabazon railway station.
But she said: “At the end of the day we need a radical solution, something much more than the sum of those parts, if we’re actually going to solve the problem.”
The new town initiative could offer a solution, councillors believe, with extra funding and powers to construct buildings and infrastructure more quickly.
As well as resolving transport problems, council leaders hope the designation of a new town will create better paid jobs, “end the HMO nightmare” by building more student flats, and lead to much more affordable housing too.
Behind the new town idea is the government wishing to identify locations where lots of housing can be built quickly, with infrastructure in place from the start.
New housing estates in South Gloucestershire, including Lyde Green and Bradley Stoke, have previously suffered with a shortage of schools and transport links being built in time for residents to move in.
To build infrastructure more quickly, a mayoral development corporation under Metro Mayor Helen Godwin could be introduced.
Opposition leader Cllr Liz Brennan (Con, Frenchay & Downend) warned that this would be less democratically accountable than the normal system of councillors on planning committees voting whether to permit contentious developments.
She said: “What we’re concerned about is the retention of democratic control over planning decisions, if the powers are transferred to the mayoral development corporation.”
Details of the new towns programme are still being ironed out. A public consultation run by the government ended last month, and more information will be announced later about how the scheme will work. Early indications suggest the designation could include investing in rail and sustainable travel.
Transport planners are exploring “enhanced rail accessibility at Brabazon, stronger connections to Parkway Station, and the potential for a fast, reliable and high-capacity east-west and orbital public transport corridor broadly aligned with the A4174, supported by wider bus and active travel improvements”, a cabinet report said. But details are not yet clear.
By Alex Seabrook, Local Democracy Reporting Service