Transport plans                                       See also Local Government page.

MetroWest

In 2012 the West of England Partnership agreed on a joint approach to rail transport in the Greater Bristol area through the Greater Bristol Metro project which was renamed MetroWest in July 2013.

Joint Local Transport Plan 4

The West of England Combined Authority (WECA) and four West of England local authorities (Bath & North East Somerset Council, Bristol City Council, North Somerset Council and South Gloucestershire Council) have prepared and approved the West of England Joint Spatial Plan. The plan, and supporting Joint Transport Study, set out the policies for how 105,500 new homes and 82,500 new jobs will be delivered in the West of England to 2036. JLTP4 builds on the recommendations in the Joint Transport Study and includes a list of schemes to address existing and future transport challenges.

Download Joint Transport Plan 4 >>

Western Gateway sub-national Transport Body

Western Gateway's Strategic Transport Plan 2024-2050 for the region.

These plans have superseded the previous plans outlined below. They are retained for historical interest.

Previous plans:

Joint Local Transport Plan

A 5 year plan for 2006-2011 was produced in 2006 which looked at all West of England transport issues. The West of England Partnership which was a partnership of the 4 local councils - Bristol City Council, North Somerset, Bath & N E Somerset, and South Gloucestershire produced the plan now known as the Joint Local Transport Plan 2. This was superseded by Joint Local Transport Plan 3 which looked ahead to 2026 and was published in 2011.

See also www.westofengland.org the former Partnership’s website.

West of England Partnership report “Our Future Transport”

October 2008: The four local sub regional authorities submitted a document - Our Future Transport to the Department for Transport. The document represented the first stage of a process that saw the four West of England Partnership authorities - Bath and North East Somerset, Bristol, North Somerset, South Gloucestershire - uniting to express continued interest in developing a bid for a slice of the Government's £1.4bn Transport Innovation Fund early in 2008. This included plans to re-open the Portishead line.

Greater Bristol Strategic Transport Study

This was a major study into the future transport needs for the Greater Bristol area covering the 25 years up to 2031. The Government Office for the South West (Now defunct – see Local Government page) commissioned the consultants Atkins to do the study. The public’s views on this were invited. In this study the emphasis was much more on buses and roads than railways. The Portishead branch hardly featured at all! One recommendation was for a bridge over the river Avon (est. £110m), which could include a rail link. This would be a very long term plan, and did not make any sense. A much cheaper and quicker solution is to reopen the existing line to Bristol. The final recommendations were passed to the GOSW, the DfT, and Local councils.

See also Local Government page.