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We are delighted to announce that our proposal for a new bridge in Bathampton has been granted Planning Permission. The Trustees extend their grateful thanks to everyone who has helped us get to this point.

We are extremely fortunate to live in a community with professionals willing to give their time and skills to bring forward our design and application supporting materials for reduced rates or pro-bono. For their involvement we thank Format Engineers as our designers, as well as the network of businesses supporting the application including LPC Trull, Nicholas Person Associates, Hillside Trees and Planning Heritage Ltd. accessed through the network and financial support of Alastair Gibson at Charlcombe Homes.

Those to thank also include local organisations and businesses – our Parish Council, Ward Councillors, local schools (Bathampton and King Edwards School), The George Inn, Mac McKillop of Bathampton Farm, as well as wider Bath-based donors such as The Medlock Trust, St John’s Foundation and Orseis Trust. Individuals have also been very generous, contributing over £7,000 in personal donations and via fundraising events.

We are equally pleased that B&NES Highways recognises the value of the project and has set aside funds to carry out the next step – the detailed design for the scheme, as well as a procurement exercise. This is great news for the community in Bathampton who deserve a far safer crossing than the existing bridge. We will continue to use our website/Twitter and Parish Council communication channels to feed progress back to the community.

 

Please join us for our AGM on Monday 25th February, 19:45 at The George Pub!

All welcome. Look forward to seeing you there!

PUBLIC MEETING: FIRST ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING OF THE BATHAMPTON CONKER CROSSING ASSOCIATION; 25th February 2019; 8.0 pm The George, Bathampton

AGENDA

1. Chair’s report: Summary of main actions and outcomes in 2018/19

2. Treasurer’s Report: 2018/19 Statement of Income & Expenditure

3. Revisions to the Constitution of the Association to become a local User Group continuing to report progress to the community via the Parish Council with the following purpose:

• On behalf of the community, seeking to champion and safeguard the design approved at Planning
• Maintaining focus on the project with stakeholders to ensure we keep a pace that reflects the urgency of the safety situation we are seeking to improve
• Acting as a conduit of progress updates and information to the community

4. Questions from the floor/A.O.B. Questions can be sent in advance to bathamptonconkercrossing@gmail.com

Bathampton Conker Crossing Association Trustees

Fiona  Meldrum, Chair.      Cheryl Cook, Treasurer.        Terry Wagstaff, Secretary

After our work with community stakeholders and team of local specialists to create the design and proposals, our Planning Application was registered on 2nd October 2018 with Reference 18/04394/FUL. Please visit the B&NES portal to view materials and leave your comments.

The Trustees have also provided a letter and FAQ to sit alongside the Application as an update.

We still have £2500 to raise for this phase to get to Planning. If you support what you see, please consider giving a donation via our Golden Giving page. Thank you.

We are really excited that donations and fundraising activities over the summer break have brought us much closer to our fundraising target for this phase of developing the Conker Crossing.

In addition to the fun we had at the pub quiz held by the George Inn, we are very grateful for contributions from new donors including the Orseis Trust (@DWestcottBath) and the St John’s Foundation. THANK YOU to everyone who has contributed.

The project now only has around £2.5k left to raise for this phase and to help reach this we are selling prints from an oil painting generously created and donated by popular local artist Jane Riley. The original will be available for auction on the evening of Friday 23^rd November at the George Inn Bathampton.

To make a donation, please visit our Golden Giving page, or contact us via email bathamptonconkercrossing@gmail.com.

 

 

 

We are delighted that popular local artist Jane Riley has generously created an oil painting for us and donated it to raise funds for the Conker Crossing. Her work beautifully captures the scene at our horseshoe bridge over the Kennet & Avon Canal in Bathampton. Thank you Jane!

Prints will be on sale at the Bathampton Village Show this Saturday afternoon, 8th September where we are sharing a table with @KateHandheld of Handheld Press.

Costs: £30 (30 x 22.5 cm plus mount) or £40 (40 x 30 cm plus mount)

If you cannot attend the show and would like to buy a print, please contact us via email bathamptonconkercrossing@gmail.com.

The original will be auctioned at the George Inn on the evening of Friday 23rd November 2018 – details to follow.

Thank you to everyone who came along to the Pub Quiz held by the George Inn Bathampton yesterday evening in aid of the Conker Crossing. There was a full house and we even had to open up the function room as an overspill! We were delighted to raise £146.

Special thanks to Debbie and team, both for hosting a fun evening and for their ongoing support.

Bathampton Primary Parents – please note date change vs email sent at end of term

We are very pleased that the team at the George Inn Bathampton, close to our proposed new bridge, are supporting our project. As part of this, they are generously hosting a Pub Quiz to raise funds, 20th August at 19:00 for a 19:30 start. £1 entry per person. Hope to see you there!

A big thank you to everyone who took time to give us your views and suggestions about our proposals to create a new safer foot and cycle bridge for the community between Tyning Road opposite Bathampton Primary school and King Edward’s School playing fields.

Our results below are supported by two more detailed tables that can be viewed on our website that set out both the responses from the Public to the proposals and the Conker Crossing team’s response to any questions, views or suggestions provided during the Consultation.

We received 61 pieces of written feedback as part of the consultation period just closed. In summary:

• 57 of 61 responses (93%) supported the project to build a new bridge. Three people didn’t answer this question and one didn’t support the project
• 41 responses (67%) wrote that they fully supported the design in the comments box while 9 responses (15%) provided no comments, including on the design
• There were 22 (36%) responses that offered suggestions, questions or challenged elements of the proposal. Of these, 4 (7%) suggested alternative materials, 2 (3%) preferred an alternative location, 2 (3%) felt it was out of keeping and 3 (5%) raised concerns about how cyclists would safely share the space with pedestrians.

The next task of trustees, design & planning team over the summer is to pull together the public responses and the pre planning advice from both the Council and Canal & River Trust to develop the full planning proposals.

Finally, a fundraising update. We have made great progress against our target of £10k for this phase and thank you if you have contributed.  We only have £4.5k left to raise! Should you support the proposals, please consider giving a donation.

One way to help us raise funds is by supporting a PUB QUIZ being held by the George Pub on Monday 20th August 19:00 for a 19:30 start. You are welcome to come along with or without an arranged team. £1 entry per person. If you are coming with a group of friends, please book ahead using  https://www.chefandbrewer.com/book/.

As a new local charity, the Bathampton Conker Crossing are extremely grateful to have been given a slot today at the Bath Life Business Club lunch. We were able to explain our purpose and seek donations to close our fundraising gap of £4.5k as we prepare our full planning application. Thank you @TheMediaClash and @BathLifeMag for the opportunity!

We continue to fundraise via Golden Giving.
Or please get in touch: Bathamptonconkercrossing@gmail.com;

Here is our speech from today…

Hello, my name is Fiona Powell and I am the volunteer Chair of both the Safer Routes to School Group at Bathampton Primary and an offshoot charity, The Bathampton Conker Crossing.

The route to school for half of our catchment includes the listed, blind, humpback bridge close to the George pub on the canal that was built in 1805 for the horse and cart. There is no pavement on the side most families use and putting one in would bring no real protection as cars regularly mount the pavement on the other side already due to the narrow width and poor lines of sight. I’m sure you can picture these dangers if you are one of the 4500 vehicles each day to use the Toll Bridge route. 

Fed up with watching these daily near misses between cars and pedestrians, as well as wanting to unlock more active travel, our purpose as the Conker Crossing is to bring forward a design for a new community foot and cycle bridge over the canal.

I am here to pitch to you today because we are now only £4.5k short of our original £28k target to prepare a full and professional planning application. 

This is no lightweight scheme. We have a locally-based expert team including our bridge designer, Walcot Street engineers Format Ltd, plus local planning specialists including Nicholas Pearson Associates, Planning Heritage Ltd, Hillside Trees and LPC Trull working with us on a reduced rate or pro bono basis. 

We have had cash donations from local organisations such as the Parish Council, the George Pub and King Edwards School. Bathampton Primary has fundraised almost £1k for us despite these being tough times for school funding and Charlcombe Homes has met several of our specialists’ fees. We are crowdfunding via Golden Giving.

Our three Ward councillors are fully supportive and at senior officer level in the council there is strong willingness to ultimately adopt the bridge. We are just concluding a positive 2-month community consultation. The response to our pre-planning application was positive from both the council and canal and river trust.

Why is the Council not paying for this feasibility phase you may be thinking? We could of course have spent this year lobbying for political support to pay for feasibility work in the next budget round, but we knew we could get there far quicker if we harnessed the goodwill and professionalism of local contacts to bring forward our own plans. The Council has asked for more community/council partnerships and we want to be one of the very first.

Should we be able to raise the remaining £4.5k this Summer then we will put ourselves in the best possible position to lobby for inclusion in the next round of council budgeting for 2019 for funds to build the bridge. If we don’t, we risk going back by a year. Given the dangers families face daily, we cannot afford for this to happen.

So many people say that this is a dangerous problem that should have been sorted out years ago. We are three volunteer Trustees doing something about it – I hope very much that you will help us by pledging towards our cause.

We publicly acknowledge all donations on our Golden Giving site and name large donors in our wider comms if they would like this. You can donate by following the details on the back of the Conker Crossing business cards in the lobby or please find me later.

Thank you for listening and enjoy your lunch.

Please take the time to read our proposals and share your comments with us by 20th July when our consultation phase ends. After that, we will be working towards our full planning application, which we are targeting in the next few months.

We are also delighted to report that we now only have £5k of our £10k target left to raise to enable submission of a full planning application. Please donate here if you are able to.

Us raising this ‘community contribution’ will help support the progress of the project. B&NES Highways team has indicated it will work with the community to explore available grants for the majority of the project cost. In the event of a successful planning application and attracting funding, the Trustees would look to work with the Parish Council and B&NES to deliver the new bridge.