Residents win battle to stop buses coming down their street

Plans to re-route 160 buses a day through a quiet residential street in Barnstaple have been scrapped from a £800,000 travel enhancement scheme after local opposition.

Devon County Council said sending buses down Sticklepath Terrace would improve journey times to Barnstaple railway station and town centre, but  residents raised issues over the safety of children, walkers and cyclists.

The largely government-funded Barnstaple rail station bus enhancement plan to join up rail and bus travel, which included relocating bus stops closer to the station, was approved by the council’s cabinet in September.

Barnstaple station, which is used by approximately 540,000 rail passengers a year and served by 280 buses each weekday, is considered an important interchange for residents across northern Devon.

Councillors said changes to the route would avoid buses queuing on the busy Station Road, but it would be restricted to northbound journeys only.

When the traffic regulation order was advertised, 73 people opposed the re-routing and 108 signed petitions against it.

Memmbers of North Devon highways and traffic orders committee (HATOC) voted by five votes to two, with one abstention, to omit Sticklepath Terrace from the traffic regulation order at their meeting this month after hearing concerns from four residents.

HATOC Chairman Cllr Jeremy Yabsley (Con, South Molton) said it was “a good outcome for democracy” but he hoped the process would not be delayed as the money for the improvements had to be spent by the end of March.

“I very much hope the project can be achieved with the amendment, but there is always a danger, if it is not exactly as it should be, the government may pull the plug on the funding,” he said.

Cllr Caroline Leaver (Lib Dem, Barnstaple South) who proposed the amendment, said the Conservative led county council had developed plans for the train station without taking on board the implications for road safety or the worries of residents.

She said there were some good elements to the plan, including relocating bus stops for all services closer to the rail station as presently some passengers had to cross four lanes of traffic to get to one.

Changes to the road layout would also enable the station forecourt to be expanded and a crossing next to the entrance making it easier for people to access the station and bus stops.

But Cllr Leaver said the project also had the potential of introducing conflict between cyclists, walkers and buses if Sticklepath Terrace were included.

“It needs to be safe for everyone and that road is well-used by cyclists to get to the Tarka Trail, which is the second most important reason people give for coming to North Devon,” she said.

“There was also no data to show that re-routing the buses would reduce journey times.”

Resident of Sticklepath Terrace Jane Steeley said this was a quiet no-through road that had not been a main route for 17 years.

“This change would have meant 160 buses a day coming down here. That’s one every four minutes,” she said.

“There are massive safety issues. Children play outside here at weekends and people walk their dogs and there are lots of cats here. It would have been carnage.

She said she had been pretty much “blind sided ” by the council after raising concerns following a consultation in early summer, where 58 per cent of people supported the plans.