Victoria Road Public Realm Scheme - Further Thoughts...

Looking ahead to the public meeting on Wednesday evening at Saltaire Methodist Church Hall regarding the Victoria Road Public Realm scheme, a few thoughts on where we are at.


First of all, I would again like to thank the residents who were involved in the online consultation that finished at the weekend, and Jackie Mulligan in particular for taking the time to set up and manage the process. I particularly appreciated meeting Jackie, Jamie and Caroline yesterday to talk through all the issues and gained a much better appreciation for, and understanding of, the perspective of residents like them who have been so concerned about the process to date and the loss of the woodland trees.

The results of the survey make very interesting reading and  demonstrate that the Council can and should do more in future to open up additional spaces for debate and feedback when carrying out its public policy consultations. I hope that this will be taken on board by the Council and that other council representatives will meet with the residents as well to listen to and discuss their concerns.

You can view the survey and the feedback here: https://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/embed_code/44699866
The survey showed that many Saltaire residents feel understandably upset about the removal of the 32 woodland trees on Victoria Road. The comments were particularly revealing in this respect, although perhaps not all that surprising given the attachment that many people including myself felt for these trees.

The survey also confirmed that many of those who took part in this latest survey felt that the Council's earlier consultation was inadequate and that they did not feel that their views had been properly taken on board. This is quite serious as, regardless of the decisions that are eventually made in these circumstances, it is absolutely vital that as many people as possible (who wish to do so) are proactively engaged in the discussions. This is particularly important in circumstances where the options being considered are likely to generate such controversy.

Our priority as ward councillors now is to ensure that the Council pays close attention to the many residents who have expressed their support for trees on Victoria Road throughout this long process. The Council's own consultation last April showed that most people wanted to see trees on Victoria Road, and the Green councillors have pressed for as many replacement street trees as possible to be planted as the public realm project has proceeded. We have had to argue very strongly for this, because the Council's preference in mid-2014 was for no replacement trees at all - this was the decision made by the Project Board in June and backed by a majority vote at the subsequent Steering Group meeting. The Council argued that, since more people voted for Option 1 (no trees at all) in the April consultation than voted for each of the other two options that included trees, replacement trees should not be considered. This made no sense to us then or now, as the combined support for Options 2 and 3 clearly outweighed Option 1. Indeed, at the risk of getting overly technical, had the officers employed a preferential voting system for the three options, rather than the first past the post method that they used, it is reasonable to assume that Option 2 (as many replacement trees as possible) would have prevailed.


Anyway, we argued the case and the Council agreed to dig exploratory tree pits to identify where new trees could be planted. The tree pits had not been planned and we were told that carrying out this work would use funds that could be invested elsewhere in the project. However, we insisted on the pits being dug and they revealed that there is room for eight replacement trees on the upper stretch of Victoria Road. These trees are now being planted and - to be scrupulously fair - we are grateful that the senior councillors and officers on the Project Board listened to our point of view.


So, at the risk of labouring the point, these new trees are a direct result of our intervention in the process and would not have been included in the scheme at all if Shipley's three Green councillors had not repeatedly reminded colleagues that most local residents wanted trees on Victoria Road. This is documented clearly in paragraph 2.2.2 on page 5 of the report about the scheme that went to the Regeneration and Economy Overview and Scrutiny Committee on 8 October 2014 (you can, hopefully, read the report here: http://councilminutes.bradford.gov.uk/wps/PA_CommitteeMinutes/DisplayDocServlet?docID=12984).


Unfortunately, the tree pit surveys also revealed that the extensive presence of a number of underground services (pipes, cables) beneath the pavements elsewhere makes it practically impossible to plant replacement trees up and down the rest of Victoria Road. New trees require proper tree pits, these take up space and cannot go in where there are services like this. So we asked what it would cost to move the services; we were told that the cost of moving one of the cables alone would have been £113,000 plus VAT and that moving all the services was simply beyond the financial scope of the project. We felt that this was advice we had to accept.


So the Green councillors have sought instead to secure some replacement trees on the carriageway itself. We argued in the autumn that planting trees in build-outs or even tree tubs would not only help mitigate the loss of the woodland trees, but would slow car speeds and help Saltaire's many pedestrians to cross the road more safely. We were advised, however, that there are underground services beneath the carriageway as well, and that altering the line of the pavements would undermine the architectural heritage of the village. These are serious considerations, for sure, but we remained unconvinced and have urged the Council to revisit the option of providing additional street trees in some form on the carriageway. We argue that additional trees can be accommodated in ways that do not dramatically alter the heritage character of the village and would, in fact, help to screen the numerous parked cars that were certainly not a feature of Victorian Saltaire.


We have also, incidentally, asked the Council to do more to plant replacement trees on adjacent plots of land, such as the Caroline Street car park, and understand that this is an option that is under consideration as well.


The bottom line is this. The Green councillors want as many trees as possible to be planted in and around Victoria Road and we welcome all suggestions that will help us to persuade the Council to do so in the months and years ahead. The scheme will bring significant benefits to Saltaire, including beautifully renewed paving, but we need to ensure that this busy road has as much tree life as possible within the urban constraints of a 21st Century village.


Finally, in closing, I would strongly encourage residents to attend the Saltaire World Heritage Site Information Session at Saltaire Methodist Church, Wednesday 25 February, 7-9pm. All details here: http://www.bradford.gov.uk/bmdc/community_and_living/neighbourhoods/neighbourhood_forums_events/Saltaire_WHS_250215

In the meantime, if you would like to contact the Council for detailed information about any aspect of this project, you can email our World Heritage Site Officer, Helen Thornton, at helen.thornton@bradford.gov.uk.
You can also contact the portfolio holder on the Executive Committee with overall responsibility for the project, Cllr Val Slater, at val.slater@bradford.gov.uk.

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All of the Council information relating to this project can be found here: http://www.bradford.gov.uk/bmdc/the_environment/conservation_and_design/victoria_road_saltaire

The Scheme Drawing can be found here: http://www.bradford.gov.uk/NR/rdonlyres/B112E549-54DE-4203-8C8F-9B87E0DD8EF5/0/VictoriaRoadSaltaireSchemeDrawing.pdf

The independent tree survey can be found here: http://www.bradford.gov.uk/NR/rdonlyres/158EFFA8-375B-4D4D-8CAD-6281FC8A22D7/0/INDEPENDENTTREESURVEYVictoriaRoadSaltaire.pdf

The summary report of the public consultation held in March 2014 can be found here: http://www.bradford.gov.uk/NR/rdonlyres/F113C9CE-AE6D-4873-9D83-77F871B49101/0/VictoriaRoadSchemeConsultationResultsSummaryReport.pdf

The Consultation Document can be found here: http://www.bradford.gov.uk/NR/rdonlyres/6423558D-8C29-4AA0-A95B-45227A7B37FE/0/VICTORIAROADCONSULTATIONDOCUMENT.pdf

Sainsbury's in Saltaire? No thanks!

Here is the letter I have just emailed off to the T&A.


When will we get a government that will protect our local independent traders from the predatory competition of the big supermarkets?


When markets fail to support resilient community life, government must step in.


Sir,

I share the concerns of many residents about Sainsbury’s apparent interest in opening a store in

Saltaire.

Several residents have received letters from Sainsbury’s, but tell me they are happy with their choice of shops. I agree. Saltaire’s high street is celebrated as a thriving shopping parade, with shops ranging from the local Co-op to smaller, friendly independent traders.

A new Sainsbury’s will undermine these local retailers and hit the Co-op as well. It will also complicate a traffic situation that is far from ideal, but at least safer now the old roundabout has been replaced by a light-controlled junction. I am sure residents living on nearby Grosvenor Road will not welcome the extra parking nuisance this shop would bring in.

I hope local people will contribute to the planning process if a formal application is submitted, and I will do my best to ensure the matter is properly considered by the area planning panel in due course.

In the longer term, we also need government action to protect our local shops from being unfairly squeezed out of business by the multi-billion pound supermarket chains.

Yours faithfully,

Cllr Kevin Warnes (Shipley, Green)

 

Saltaire Trees - My Perspective

Those of you who follow developments closely in Saltaire will have noticed a number of tweets and facebook posts in recent days expressing concerns about the 'lost trees' - the 32 mature forest trees that are being removed by Bradford Council as the first part of its 'Public Realm Improvement Scheme' for Victoria Road. Here is my perspective about what is happening.


The trees on Victoria Road were planted in the late 1940s or early 1950s. For reasons beyond the realm of human understanding, the bright sparks at the town hall decided to introduce forest varieties rather than more appropriate and smaller 'street trees'. As was presumably standard practice at that time, the Council simply dug up the flagstones and stuck the trees into the ground rather than altering the road, kerb and paving in order to properly accommodate them. In the decades that followed, the saplings gradually matured into the very large and impressive trees that graced Victoria Road for many years.


Many residents, myself included, have appreciated these trees enormously for their beauty, their amenity and, of course, for their shading and other urban environmental benefits. I have supported the work of Forest of Bradford in planting 500,000+ trees across our district in recent years precisely because of the huge ecological value they provide. I fully understand why many local people became attached to the trees in Saltaire, myself included. When Council officers have previously sought to remove any of the trees, I have insisted on explanations and, in some cases, challenged the proposals. When four trees near the junction with Saltaire Road were earmarked for removal several years ago following a serious road accident, for example, I supported the resident campaign to save them as I did not think the trees were the primary reason for the crash.


At the same time, whenever we have conducted our Saltaire street surgeries, we have fielded complaints from residents about the impact of these huge trees on the close-knit residential setting of the village. Local people have pointed out the way in which the trees have restricted access along the pavements and have forced up the paving and tilted nearby walls as the roots have grown and shifted. Not a problem for able-bodied people like me, but an issue for many elderly folk, not to mention our disabled neighbours and visitors or parents pushing buggies. Some of the trees are so big and so close to windows that they have also reduced the light available for residents' homes, leaving some people reliant on indoor lighting in their front rooms throughout the day.


It was for these reasons, as well as a desire to invest in improving the amenity of the main thoroughfare of this increasingly popular world heritage site and tourist destination, that the Council considered investing in regenerating Victoria Road. This process was managed by the Council's Executive Committee, since the funding was coming from the central budget, but the Shipley ward councillors were consulted as the discussions unfolded. Our aim from the outset as ward councillors was to influence the decision-making process in order to ensure that the outcomes were properly thought through and informed by the preferences of local people.


My initial assumption was that the project would involve creating high quality public realm in a way that would retain most or all of the existing trees. To my non-expert eye, the trees seemed fine. However, in December 2013, an independent arboricultural report commissioned by the Council concluded that the tree population was "struggling", with only a third of them in good condition; a quarter of them had a life expectancy of less than ten years; half of them would need to be removed within twenty years; three-quarters within thirty years, and ninety per cent within forty years.


This was a shock, but it was the key reason why the ward councillors eventually agreed with the proposal to remove the trees as part of the public realm proposals drawn up by the Council's team. We could have taken the easy way out, and campaigned for the trees to be kept for the time being and then cut down one by one every year or two for the next few decades. We could even have washed our hands of the whole deal and blamed the 'Labour Executive' for 'destroying our much-loved tree population'. We could have kept our heads down. But we accepted the case that, by removing the trees in 'one go' at this stage, the Council would be able to create the opportunity to plough £700,000+ into restoring the pavements, the street lighting and make other valuable civic improvements in a project that will result in a regenerated urban space in line with the heritage aspects of the village. These are some of the most beautiful and iconic buildings in the country and the village is of course celebrated worldwide for its architectural and historic value. To gradually remove the trees and do ad hoc 'patch and mend' works for years to come would have precluded a proper long-term solution and - crucially - would not have saved the trees in the longer term anyway.


Having said that, of course, we immediately pressed for as many of the trees as possible to be replaced. The officers advised us, not unreasonably, that planting new trees would disrupt the architectural integrity of the scheme that was being proposed; that new trees would not be in keeping with the 'restoration' of a world heritage setting that for its first century had not had any trees at all; and that providing them would cost money that could be spent on other public realm improvements. Nonetheless, we pressed the case for replacement trees because this is what most residents wanted.


Exploratory tree pits were therefore dug - at our insistence - up and down Victoria Road to see where new trees could be introduced. The results were conclusive and - unfortunately from our point of view - negative. Due to the presence of extensive underground cabling and pipes, the only location where new trees can be planted is along one side of the upper part of Victoria Road. Trees require sizeable tree pits in order to enable them to flourish. Moving the cables and pipes, even assuming that alternative routes could be found given the nearby presence of other services beneath the highway, would cost hundreds of thousands of pounds and is well beyond the scope of this budget. We were told that moving ONE of the cables alone would cost £113,000 plus VAT. So, again, we reviewed the evidence and settled on a limited number of new replacement street trees as the only possible option.


So, to recap, it seems to me that the Council is responding to several fundamental and unavoidable challenges: the existing 'forest' tree population on Victoria Road was unsustainable in this tight urban setting; 90% of the trees would not have survived in the longer term; we are unable to replant new trees along most of Victoria Road due to the cabling and pipes that run beneath the pavements; it would be too expensive to move the cabling and pipes, even if we could find the space to make it possible to do so; and leaving the trees in situ and removing one of them on average each year for the next 30-40 years would not allow us to create a regenerated public realm in one go, but would instead leave in place the dilapidated street scene, ugly street lighting and cracked and uneven paving that has understandably bothered residents for years.


The bottom line is this. No one at all, neither councillor, officer nor member of the public has been able to offer us a workable solution at any stage over the past two years that would have allowed the Council to keep these huge forest trees on Victoria Road; no alternative viable policy option in any of the meetings, or emails, or phone conversations, or public meetings, or neighbourhood forums, or via the Council website, or tweets, or facebook posts, or on the doorsteps when the local Green councillors have carried out our Saltaire street surgeries, or in the pub, or in response to the Council's consultation (see below). We have never seen a plan that might enable us to rejuvenate and sustain the tree population into the distant future, provide world-class paving and other high quality street furniture and open up the fabulous architectural heritage of this urban setting.


It is also the case that 70% of the people who participated in the Council's consultation held in March and April 2014 wanted all of the existing trees removed. About half of these residents also wanted as many replacement trees as possible to be introduced, which is what we are doing. Less than a quarter of the respondents wanted the existing trees retained. The results, though mixed, were clear enough. Most people, even though they wanted trees, recognised that the existing trees were unsustainable in this particular urban setting.


The consultation process has been criticised in recent days for not being sufficiently extensive or open-ended, so let's be clear about what happened. Council officers carried out a door-to-door survey of all 79 addresses on Victoria Road; the Council also wrote to every resident living in Saltaire advising how they could take part in the consultation; two public drop-in exhibition sessions were held in early April in Saltaire so that residents could study the proposals, ask officers any questions and submit their comments; all of the information was published online and residents were also able to comment electronically if they wished to do so.


My settled view is that the consultation gathered sufficient feedback to enable the officers and the Executive Committee to broadly gauge public opinion and determine what to do next. In particular, the fact that the residents who took part were able to see the plans and ask detailed questions and offer additional suggestions meant that it was a qualitative process as well as a quantitative exercise.


In closing, let me stress that we supported this Executive Committee decision because it was the best one to take in these difficult circumstances. We pushed officers at every stage to justify their recommendations. We pressed for the tree pit surveys and we insisted on new trees being planted in all the locations where this is possible. We also, incidentally, asked for new trees in raised planter beds to be considered, partly as a means of improving traffic and parking management on Victoria Road. This was ruled out, to our disappointment, but it is an idea that we hope to revisit in future.


One final thought. It is my genuine impression that everyone involved in this process from the outset - councillors, officers, consultants - has done their best to ensure that the solution arrived at by Bradford Council is the best we can achieve and has worked hard to listen to the views of local people as well. No one has been more conscientious and considerate in this regard than our World Heritage Site officer. I think it is a good scheme and I look forward to seeing it completed in the months ahead. I'll miss the trees as well, but I honestly think that the Council made the right decision and I hope very much that this will be taken on board by everyone who reads this post.

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If you would like to contact the Council for detailed information about any aspect of this project, you can email our World Heritage Site Officer, Helen Thornton, at helen.thornton@bradford.gov.uk.


You can also contact the portfolio holder on the Executive Committee with overall responsibility for the project, Cllr Val Slater, at val.slater@bradford.gov.uk.


I would strongly encourage residents to attend the Saltaire World Heritage Site Information Session at Saltaire Methodist Church, Wednesday 25 February, 7-9pm. All details here: http://www.bradford.gov.uk/bmdc/community_and_living/neighbourhoods/neighbourhood_forums_events/Saltaire_WHS_250215

Best,

Kevin Warnes (Shipley, 14 February 2015)

@kevinwarnes

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All of the Council information relating to this project can be found here: http://www.bradford.gov.uk/bmdc/the_environment/conservation_and_design/victoria_road_saltaire


The Scheme Drawing can be found here: http://www.bradford.gov.uk/NR/rdonlyres/B112E549-54DE-4203-8C8F-9B87E0DD8EF5/0/VictoriaRoadSaltaireSchemeDrawing.pdf


The independent tree survey can be found here: http://www.bradford.gov.uk/NR/rdonlyres/158EFFA8-375B-4D4D-8CAD-6281FC8A22D7/0/INDEPENDENTTREESURVEYVictoriaRoadSaltaire.pdf


The summary report of the public consultation held in March 2014 can be found here: http://www.bradford.gov.uk/NR/rdonlyres/F113C9CE-AE6D-4873-9D83-77F871B49101/0/VictoriaRoadSchemeConsultationResultsSummaryReport.pdf


The Consultation Document can be found here: http://www.bradford.gov.uk/NR/rdonlyres/6423558D-8C29-4AA0-A95B-45227A7B37FE/0/VICTORIAROADCONSULTATIONDOCUMENT.pdf