On 30 January 2026, the council published its decision to make the three, linked through-traffic restriction trials in Winifred's Lane, Gay Street and Catharine Place permanent.
Read the decision notice and the report, which includes the outcomes of the traffic and air quality monitoring and the public consultation surveys.
This decision was called-in, and the council’s Climate Emergency and Sustainability Policy Development and Scrutiny Panel met to review it on Monday 23 February 2026.
During the hearing, the decision to make the three trials permanent was upheld and on 17 April, the legal process to make the trials permanent will be complete (view the Traffic Regulation Order).
Read the statement on the council’s newsroom on the outcome of the hearing.
The next step is to make the temporary features of the trials, such as the kerbing and signage, permanent. Once a timetable is in place for this, we will inform residents.
You can subscribe to the Lower Lansdown e-newsletter for updates.
The Lower Lansdown and The Circus area is one of several areas in our community-led Liveable Neighbourhoods programme. It is located near the centre of Bath and is approximately 0.7 miles from Bath Spa train station.
Liveable Neighbourhoods is a community-led programme that aims to improve residential streets and encourage safe, active and more sustainable forms of travel, such as walking, wheeling and cycling.
Typical improvements suggested by communities are:
Find out more about LNs and their benefits
Our role is to support communities to develop their own LNs, engaging with them at every stage of development. We want to hear from a diverse range of people to ensure the final designs meet everyone’s needs.
Read more about our approach to developing LNs
View our full project development timeline which includes links to the relevant reports and the next steps for the wider LN programme.
Please expand the sections below to find out more.
During a public consultation in Autumn 2020 on Liveable Neighbourhoods in B&NES, we received the following results from 1,575 respondents (including residents and visitors to the B&NES area):
Out of the 1,625 responses submitted as part of our public engagement in December 2021, 375 people commented on the Lower Lansdown and The Circus area.
The most common issues cited were through traffic (69%), followed by speeding traffic (61%), parking (33%) and school run traffic (33%). 61% of those responding to the survey from the Lower Lansdown area went on to say that a restriction on through traffic would have the most impact in addressing these issues.
Below is a summary of what people said:
We held a workshop on 27 July 2022 with residents who expressed an interest during earlier consultations to co-design the Lower Lansdown and The Circus Liveable Neighbourhood.
At the workshop, 85 residents took part in a series of exercises to identify what they liked about the area, what could be improved, and what specific measures could help, plotting these on a map of the area.
To see the maps and the longlist of ideas suggested by the community, please view the report below.
In August 2022, attendees were invited back to review the outcomes of the workshop and prioritise their ideas, focusing on the original application area.
Our partner Sustrans is helping to broaden our engagement by involving people in the community with different and seldom-heard voices. During co-design, they visited community groups to gather their feedback.
During 2023/24 we reviewed the ideas put forward during previous engagements against a range of criteria. This work, conducted with ward councillors, resulted in a shortlist of measures that we believe will bring most benefit to the community alongside a consideration of costs and technical feasibility.
This final shortlist of measures was published in the full business case for the LN programme in Autumn 2024.
Meanwhile, we are trialling three early measures which are through-traffic restrictions in Winifred’s Lane, Catharine Place and Gay Street.
On 1 November 2024 (ahead of the wider programme) we installed three, linked through-traffic restrictions trials in the area:
The outcomes of the trials which ran from November 2024 to the end of April 2025 are now published in a Single Member Decision Report and a decision on the future of the trials is due in early 2026.
Find out more about the trials and public consultation
We will publish the decision on the Lower Lansdown and The Circus trials early in 2026.
View the project development timeline
Please subscribe to our newsletter to be informed of progress. If you would like to receive this newsletter in another format please contact us using the details below.
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If you would like to talk to an advisor, get involved in the LN programme or be kept up to date on future events, email us at LNs@bathnes.gov.uk, or call 01225 39 40 25 (and request a call-back from a team member)
Please also let us know if you need this information in easy-read or an alternative format.