North Somerset bus lane roll-out 'challenging'

Four bus lanes have been built in two years, including on the Long Ashton bypass

New bus lanes planned for North Somerset should be rolled out over a period of up to a decade - not three years, the council's roads chief said.

North Somerset Council has opened four bus lanes since it was given £48m in government funding in 2022, but last month paused a roll out of further lanes until November.

The first was installed on the Long Ashton bypass a year ago, and the latest is the Brockley Combe junction on the A370.

The council's transport lead Hannah Young said on 14 May that the volume of schemes being delivered is "really challenging".

The council will re-examine its strategy for using the funding in a "refresh" of its bus service improvement plan, the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) said.

It is not known what the bus lanes planned for November are.

Speaking in a council meeting, Dr Young said the authority would have “less focus” on bus lanes in the refresh.

“[We] are looking at other aspects of bus priority, which includes things like the infrastructure around bus stops and waiting areas, and ‘first and last mile’ to get to a bus stop which I know has come up particularly in rural areas," she said.

'Residents deeply concerned'

Councillor Thomas Daw said residents are "deeply concerned" about the safety of the Brockley Combe bus lane.

He said: “I am told over again it is a matter of signalling.

"Is this still the case or do we need to look at other approaches to fix this? And what lessons can we take away from this to put into the BSIP refresh and make sure we don’t have these kinds of problems again?”

Dr Young said CCTV had been collected at the junction and it “hasn’t raised any safety concerns".

She added more work is being done to the junction, with additional markings to be painted to ensure cars were moving into available space, and further changes to be worked on with the “intelligent lights” in the next month.

On 27 June councillors will discuss the Brockley Combe bus lane along with three other bus lanes.