Public Transport in Bath – Guest Blog by James Freeman

I was born and brought up in our wonderful city of Bath. In 2014 I took over as Managing Director of the local bus operator, First West of England. Although the job was based in Bristol I opted to live in Bath not just because it is such a magnificent city but also because I knew that to make progress in Bath it would not be good to do it from Bristol!!  So it has proved. As a Bathonian I have been able to level with people living here and see things from a Bath perspective.

Now I am retiring.  During my time the numbers using the local buses rose year by year (until the pandemic) and the arguably toxic brand of First Bus (aka Worst Bus!) has been gradually overcome. Yet what I wasn’t able to achieve is a sustainable profit to provide for investment. We tried many things, but Bath is an expensive place to run buses – and an awkward one, too, with narrow roads, difficult turns and parked cars everywhere. So it’s really tricky to run buses profitably.

The problem is there are just too many cars in Bath. Active travel, including the use of powered bikes and scooters so essential for Bath’s hills, must take centre stage. Car use must be restricted not just because of air quality but also to make the city streets better for people. Public transport has an important place.

That has been recognised by the Government which has published an ambitious Bus Strategy with the promise of substantial funding, powers for highway authorities to introduce more public transport priority and a mechanism for handling all this through the local transport authority – in our case the West of England Combined Authority (WECA). WECA will be required to produce a Bus Service Improvement Plan in October and establish an Enhanced Partnership with operators by April 2022. This is an ambitious timetable but is an unusual recognition by Government of the important role that buses can play in our lives post-Covid.

What will they do in Bath? WECA’s Bus Strategy, published last summer, is very light on what could and should be done in Bath.  So this is our chance. We Bathonians need to come up with schemes that fit our unique circumstances as a World Heritage City sandwiched between seven hills and with few bridges spanning its river. Amongst other things, that plan needs to re-think the way public transport serves the city centre. For example, bus routes might terminate when they reach the edge of the central area – at Westgate Buildings or at Walcot Street, for example. A distributor of much smaller probably electric vehicles might circle the main nodal points including the railway station. Most traffic could then be deleted from the central streets.

My point is this; don’t leave it to WECA. Rather, let’s make sure that the ideas for solving Bath’s problems come from Bath.  Perhaps there is a role for the Bath Alliance for Transport and the Public Realm working with the B&NES Councillors? Good luck!