This meeting agenda item was coordinated with a
site visit earlier in the day when Members of the Commission
visited Temple Meads Station and the surrounding area with City
Council officers and a representative from Network Rail.
The BCC Senior Project Manager for Temple Quarter
introduced the item to Members and clarified the presentation
provided information and an up-date on:
-
Progress on current Temple Quarter
projects
-
Future proposals for Temple Meads station, Temple
Quarter, and St Philips Marsh
-
Develop a scrutiny programme for next
year
A study has been commissioned to develop long term
proposals for the area by developing a high quality, deliverable,
flexible and phased masterplan, focused on and around Bristol
Temple Meads station. This study wouldn’t be completed until
later in 2020 but in the meantime the station would be introducing
some short-term solutions to help peak time travellers. A summary of the key points were as
follows:
·
Collaboration on the plans was working
very well and has momentum.
·
There are 14 million passengers
annually at Temple Meads (Paddington has 100m per year).
·
Passenger numbers are growing; forecast
to 20m per year by the end of this
decade.
·
The lay-out is not perfect and there
are pinch-points at peak times, especially on platform
3.
·
65 - 70% of passengers currently use
the Northern Entrance / Gateway.
·
It is not currently the experience that
Network Rail want passengers to
have.
·
The WH Smiths shop will be removed soon
and an additional set of stairs will be installed in that location
instead. When asked why stairs and not
an escalator it was stated that stairs have more capacity than
escalators.
·
The lift on platform 3 will also be
moved and will be replaced with a much improved
facility.
·
The booking office area is not ideal
where it is so it will be moved to the Northern Entrance at some
point.
·
The space outside near the priory will
be opened up for public realm instead of being a car
park.
·
There will be interchanges for buses at
Temple Way and The Friary.
·
The ramp has become very congested over
time and is not a pleasant experience for passengers. In future, only taxis will be able to continue to
use it.
·
A recent opportunity has emerged for a
potential Southern Gateway on the A4.
·
Delivery timescale for all station
components will be up to 15 years.
The following points were discussed:
-
Members appreciated the opportunity to understand
more and feed into the future plans for the site.
-
Members were interested to know more about the
potential new south gateway. A Member
who’s Ward was very close to the area stated that local
residents were concerned about access to and from the new
University Campus.
-
Any potential for bus passengers on the A4 and A37 to have
improved access the station was welcomed.
-
It was confirmed the plan was for a new cycle hub
with 1000 spaces.
-
The new bus hub would be dispersed between 4 sites.
Members thought a dispersed bus hub could be confusing, saying it
would need to be made very simple for people to navigate, such as
coloured lines on the road. Officers agreed with the point being
made.
-
A Member said they very much appreciated the site
visit. When looking at the exits,
bottle-necks and conflicts, in his view the journey to the station
needed to be continuous one. Officers
said they are looking at the connectivity of the Enterprise Zone to
the rest of city and how people use and access the sites. They said
they did want to do a ‘design review’ of people’s
needs, where they were going and how they’d get there and
they needed to make sure they weren’t making the situation
worse.
-
With the positive Government funding announcement
that week about the Bristol East junction; would this have a
bearing on this Master Plan? It was
said that Network Rail has plans in place and this was good
opportunity for future developments.
-
Chair asked about the potential for bringing this
back to Scrutiny in future. Officers
said they were cautious but hopeful the funding could be found to
implement the plans. This was initially
likely to be a ‘cocktail’ of public sector
funding.
-
It was asked if there was to be a rapid transit
system in Bristol, how that would interact with current plans. It
was said it could either be at the lower end of the Friary or at
the lower end of the ramp on the left; how transport links up is
front-and-centre of the Master Plan.
-
It was suggested that the Commission could in future
undertake a joint session or piece of work with the West of England
(WoE) Joint Scrutiny Committee to look at the West of England
Combined (WECA) transport plans that are in the
pipeline.
-
It was said that during some previous projects such
as this, some of the existing infrastructure had been removed and
the city had therefore lost some of its history. It was asked if care will be taken this time to
ensure that did not happen again.
Officers said they agreed with the point being made and they had
already produced some information about how to avoid that happening
again.