Noise associated with transport, in particular road traffic, can adversely affect a wide range of activities. It can be a particular nuisance when it affects people in their homes and at night when it can disturb sleep. Furthermore, people’s enjoyment of both the built and natural environment can be seriously impaired by excess noise from transport.

The vision therefore asserts that national noise protection standards should be achieved in all residential areas within the district and that within the historic core of Bath, a higher standard should be sought, to ensure that residents and visitors can enjoy the city’s heritage without being subject to excessive noise.

One of the major adverse side effects of traffic congestion within B& NES is the impact that this has on air quality. Not only does this harm the fabric of the built up areas but also creates a risk to health.

The Vision therefore stipulates that national air quality standards should be achieved throughout B& NES and within areas of particular heritage value, such as the central area of Bath, higher standards are sought in order to protect these internationally recognised assets from degradation. It is also important that future changes in air quality standards are closely monitored as on going research reveals the longer-term effects of exposure to pollutants, for example the growth in asthma in young people.

Transport is a major producer of ‘greenhouse gases’ through the combustion of fossil fuels. These emissions are linked to climate change and have been the subject of international treaties, in an attempt to limit further global warming. It is considered essential that the transport policies adopted for B&NES should contribute positively towards national and international targets for reducing the emission of greenhouse gases. As an environmentally conscious authority, B&NES might consider more ambitious targets.

Transport movements, stationary vehicles and the construction of new transport infrastructure, all have the potential to adversely affect townscapes by detracting from the built environment and spoiling the urban experience within B&NES. This affects both residents and visitors. The Vision therefore requires that the relationship between people, traffic and places be such that traffic and parked vehicles are not allowed to dominate the urban environment within B&NES.

Transport movements can affect historic resources in a number of ways. Partly through the impact of new construction and partly through on-going vehicle movements. With relatively little new transport infrastructure envisaged, the focus of this element of the Vision is on protecting heritage sites from the adverse effects of vehicle movements. Whilst this crosses over a number of sub-objectives, it recognises the need to protect heritage sites from those impacts which would degrade these national/international assets, including emissions, noise, vibration. It is also important that their setting is not devalued by the scale of traffic movements passing by or by surrounding them with parked vehicles.

Much of the discussion relating to landscape can also be applied to biodiversity, whilst the Vision recognises the importance of wildlife and natural habitats, it does not consider that there is likely to be the need to implement specific transport policies to protect biodiversity which are not covered under other objectives. The Vision would however require that biodiversity matters be fully considered in the development of new transport infrastructure.

Issues associated with groundwater, water quality and watercourse management in relation to transport are significant when considering the construction of new infrastructure but are of less concern in relation to existing transport facilities. The Vision therefore focuses on the need to ensure water quality is fully taken into account in the design of new transport infrastructure.

The contribution of transport policy towards fitness in B&NES, is anticipated to be very small and much better considered by other policy areas.

The Vision envisages an on-going programme of work to reduce transport accidents, building on best practice, continually reviewing and monitoring accidents and tackling causes. It recognises that for new developments, urban design can play an important role in producing a safer streetscape by modifying traditional relationships between motor vehicles, pedestrians and cyclists. For existing urban and rural areas, changes to streetscape and road layout are identified as being important in transforming driver behaviour.

It is recognised that congestion represents economic inefficiency and has a number of adverse environmental side effects. The Vision therefore requires that the traffic network should operate with minimal practical levels of congestion and provide very reliable journey times.

Whilst the elimination of congestion would also assist the public transport user, there is also the need to ensure that public transport journey times are competitive

One of the most important features of the Vision relates to reliability. That includes journey time reliability for private vehicles and, both journey time and service reliability for public transport. This reliability benefits all types of activity within B&NES but is of particular importance to the local economy where uncertainties in journey time are considered to be an existing problem and threat to future growth.

This is not considered to have relevance to the Transport Vision for B&NES.

It is recognised that in a number of communities within B&NES, that the presence of major transport networks (mainly highways) passing through those communities has a substantial impact on the quality of life. These highway corridors can form major barriers to pedestrian activity and degrade the urban environment through the effects of noise and air quality discussed above. The severance issue has a number of facets including the physical barriers created by roads but also elements of fear and intimidation associated with traffic travelling at speed close to pedestrians.

To tackle these problems the Transport Vision requires significant treatment of the streetscape within towns and villages that are traversed by major highway routes to minimise these severance effects, based on the principles set out in section 4.3.2.