Thornbury Wayfinders

Heritage v Accessibility

One area of contention is the conflict between Heritage and Accessibility, which came up when I joined Kyrby Brown on a short Wheel and Walk around harbourside. The first problem we came upon is the humble and traditional cobble. Cobbles are a nightmare if you come across them in a Power Chair. They are not great if you come across them three quarters of the way into the London Marathon either! Sets, which are flatter stones, can be worse if they are allowed to rise up over time. The solution is to take them up, grind them level and re-instate them properly. The visual effect is similar, but they are better for those in wheel chairs and those who are unsteady on their pins.

I wonder if a similar approach could be taken with stone stiles, which are a feature of paths within and close to Thornbury. They are cherished by the Gloucestershire Stone Stiles Project for the CPRE (Council or Campaign for the Protection or Preservation of Rural England) and supported by at least one member of Thornbury Running Club. While a prominent South Glos Councillor is trying to remove them closer in to town.

Jodi Savickas, Associate Director in Movement and Place at AtkinsRealis, who is advising South Glos officers in delivering better walking routes for Thornbury and Yate, reminded us of the four Cs: Complexity, Communication and Comfortable Change. There is not always a simple solution.

Seb Slater of Shrewsbury BID Heritage and Accessibility do not have to clash if things are sensitively handled, and Kyrby Brown pointed to a ride that supplied VR (Virtual Reality) headsets so that people who could not go on a ride could share the experience with a friend who could.

(I can’t remember who suggested that the Listed Building inspectorate killed vulnerable old people by refusing to let them have double glazing!)

Other Conficts

Another problem is the camber of a walkway, which tends to throw a Power Chair first one way then another. I had come across this problem when going around with Chris Carter in her chair, when dropped pavements caused problems if you were trying to wheel across them. This is an example of a solution to one problem causing another.

Kyrby Brown also drew attention to the problems afflicting the blind and partially sighted. I knew about tactile pavements, which are the raised bumps and lines that warn people of a danger, like the edge of a road or a pond. When they were put along the edge of the footway in Thornbury’s High Street, they were decried as a trip hazard!

Another bugbear was the common A-frame, by which a shop owner might lure a punter into his or her shop. And pavement parking. Both of which were hazards for the partially sighted.

One attendee asked why Pavement Parking was not universally banned – to which Steven Williams, the Bristol City Councillor and former Lib Dem Front Bench Spokesman in Parliament, replied that it was not always possible. Knowing the streets off the Gloucester Road in Horfield/Bishopston you can see his point. These streets were built to be served by the tram and it is difficult to ban people from parking outside their own house.

These are, of course political problems, which is why we had a recorded message from Green Bristol MP Carla Denyer, and contributions from Simon Lightwood, Minister for Local Transport and Ed Plowden, the Green Bristol Councillor on the Transport and Connectivity Committee as well as Steven Williams.

The post contentious point was the idea of Liveable Neighbourhoods, which probably needs separate coverage.