B&NES Net Zero Transport Forum

Bath and North East Somerset Council have launched a new Net Zero Transport Forum. We attended the second meeting, and it is great to see a wide range of community organisations and interests represented. B&NES council decided to invite an external professional facilitator to host the session - a good move, given how emotive transport issues can be. Mark Goodman did a great job setting out groundrules of respect and listening, with a good sense of humour.

We heard about the structure of transport bodies in the UK - from the national Department for Transport, to sub-national transport bodies (Western Gateway Sub-national Transport Body), to combined authorities (WECA) and Local Authorities (in this case B&NES).

We also heard from First Bus about the challenges they are currently facing:

• 150 drivers short in their West of England zone (which goes all the way down to Glastonbury and Frome!)

• Their Covid emergency funding is ending in October, and WECA funding for new bus routes only kicks in from April - so there is a shortfall

• They are not sure how to fill this gap (WECA is hosting ‘big choices on buses’ conversation about this).

Here are the notes and slides from the meeting, provided by B&NES.