A53 Basford Bank ‘bus gate’ update
Newcastle-under-Lyme Borough Council, Stoke-on-Trent City Council and Staffordshire County Council have issued a joint statement regarding a possible alternative to the Basford Bank 'bus gate'.
It said:
As plans for a bus gate on Etruria Road became more detailed, we were concerned by the scale of the predicted traffic diversions and the impact this would have on many other side roads in the area, affecting the lives of hundreds of residents.
We recently shared an emerging alternative proposal with the UK Government that would avoid a bus gate being installed, which would also achieve the city and borough councils’ legal obligation to reduce pollution.
There is still a lot of work to be done to get a final plan completed and approved by the UK Government.
Work on the bus gate has now been paused while all three councils focus their efforts on completing a full business case for this alternative proposal.”
Commenting on the news, Simon Tagg, Leader of Newcastle-under-Lyme Borough Council, said:
Newcastle-under-Lyme Borough Council has been lobbying the Government and MPs for a sensible resolution to this issue since 2018.
The reality is that people’s travel habits have changed since the Covid lockdowns and therefore the situation has evolved so that a bus gate has become a large hammer to crack a very small nut.
If the proposal on the Stoke-on-Trent side of the boundary, for which I have previously lobbied, is accepted by the Government, we would welcome its adoption to remove such a disruptive measure as a bus gate.”