Melksham Bypass consultation: Wiltshire Council justifies one option plan

Wiltshire Council is facing renewed criticism over its handling of the Melksham bypass consultation.

The council has come under fire for having a short list of just one option for the bypass route – despite promises of drawing up a ‘short listing of the most viable routes’.

Critics said the bypass route was a ‘done deal’ before the consultation and was “the only option that has ever been on the table” while mayor Jon Hubbard – also a Wiltshire councillor – said it was the ‘shortest’ shortlist he has ever seen and said the credibility of the process ‘lies in tatters’.

So, was the bypass route a ‘done deal’? Why has only one route been put forward for consideration? What happened to the promise of short listing of the most viable routes? And does the credibility of the bypass consultation lie in tatters?

Melksham News sent a series of questions to Wiltshire Council. Here are our questions and their replies.

• Why is only one option (Route 10c) now being considered?

We have undertaken an assessment on the route options, taking into account the results of the public consultation, and reviewing the route options against the scheme objectives. Option 10c was identified as the most viable route, although there are alternative alignments at the northern end, which are being consulted on.

Other potential options have been discounted for a range of reasons as the scheme has evolved, including not addressing the scheme objectives, design constraints, costs leading to limited value for money, technical deliverability, local impacts, and environmental matters. It is important that the scheme progressing through to the outline business case represents the best identified solution possible.

• Is the credibility of the consultation ‘in tatters’, as suggested by Cllr Jon Hubbard?

The consultation exercise undertaken November 2020-January 2021 has provided useful information, comments and ideas that have fed into the scheme development and options assessment work. As well as raising awareness about the project and promoting engagement with stakeholders, the previous consultation highlighted matters such as:

– The importance held by the local community with regards to access to the countryside

– Alternative route suggestions, which have been considered

-Various ideas and initiatives regarding potential walking and cycling measures

– Potential severance affect that some alternative route options may have generated

– Valuable information regarding the overall support for improvement works to the A350 corridor at Melksham. 

We look forward to continuing to engage with residents and stakeholders through the next stage of consultation, and hope that we will again receive feedback that will help shape and develop the project.

• How does the council respond to people who say the bypass route was a ‘done deal’ and the consultation was a sham?

The consultation undertaken November 2020-January 2021 was the first consultation exercise regarding this scheme and as such it was considered important that views on the widest range of options should be considered, even though the emerging assessment work indicated that some options were going to be more successful than others at meeting the transport objectives of the scheme.

The Strategic Outline Business Case (SOBC) works undertaken in 2017 and the refreshed in 2019 identified Option 10c as one of the better performing options, and this finding has remained the case as we have progressed through the current phase. 

The consultation exercise provided useful information, comments and ideas that have fed into the scheme development and options assessment work, and we look forward to continuing to engage with residents and stakeholders through the next stage of non-statutory consultation. We hope that we will again receive feedback that will help shape and develop the project.

• Wiltshire Council promised in its Melksham Bypass Public Consultation that there would be a ‘Detailed assessment of better performing options’ prior to a preferred route being adopted and a ‘Sifting of options to progress from long list to short list’.  Why has this not happened?

No route has yet been adopted although we have now identified an emerging solution. The ongoing technical review and assessment work which have been progressing for several months has included an assessment of the better performing options. As part of the next stage of consultation we will be making available the draft and emerging Options Assessment Report (OAR) which details the progressive, sequential and logical approach that has been taken to sift the options and to identify the emerging solution.

• The council also promised that there will be a ‘short listing of the most viable routes with ‘a further consultation event, where the benefits and disadvantages of each will be discussed. Public feedback will again be sought and will be used to inform the identification of the preferred scheme option.’ Again, why is this not happening now?

The second round of consultation will include information on the sifting process carried out to reduce the number of options. The emerging solution includes potential variants within the design, and we will be welcoming feedback and comment on these and other aspects of the scheme from the public and other stakeholders through the next stage of consultation.

• In 2016 and 2017, Atkins were commissioned to prepare a ‘Strategic Outline Business case for the A350 Melksham Bypass scheme’. They considered 16 options and then short-listed ‘three potential options for an eastern bypass of the town’. These options are what became options roughly 10a, 10b and 10c in the Wiltshire Council consultation. The report by Atkins made clear that the shorter eastern routes (Options 10a and 10b) did not represent good value for money. The report also made clear that a Western route would be ‘unlikely to attract funding’ from the Government.  Based on this, was Option 10C, indeed, a done deal and the consultation, a sham?

The consultation and recent assessment work considered all options, and they were reviewed on the same basis. There was no preference for any of the options as it is important to identify the most suitable option that would meet the objectives and be likely to obtain funding.

It is appreciated that there has been discussion about a potential eastern bypass of Melksham since at least the 1990s. The Strategic Outline Business Case prepared in 2019 identified a potentially viable long eastern route, and the viability of the route corridor has been confirmed by the options appraisal work carried out since. Neither Options 10a or 10b had as much public support as Option 10c and concerns about severance between the town and school with the shorter routes were raised in the response to the first consultation.

If any of the other options had scored as well as Option 10c against the criteria, they would have been included in the second round of consultations.

 • According to the figures provided in the Consultation Report, improving the existing A350 seems the most popular option (31% most preferred; 29.1% least preferred for Option 7a compared to 30.8% most preferred and 42% least preferred for Option 10c). Why have improvements to the existing A350 not been put forward as a realistic alternative to Option 10c?

Both options had very similar level of public support in terms of preferred option.

Improvement of the existing road through Beanacre and at the northern end of Melksham to the standard required to meet the needs of the major road network would be unlikely to be feasible. 

Improving the existing road would not adequately address the objectives of the scheme to reduce journey times, and also does not help address air quality/collisions issues within Melksham. Providing a dual carriageway to accommodate the future traffic flows would have extensive impacts at that location and is not considered to be a realistic alternative.

•  Councillor Dr Mark McClelland said the Route 10c was ‘much more popular’ than any other route and had ‘significantly more popular support’ from the public. Can you define what ‘much more popular’ and ‘significantly more popular support’ means? Can you provide figures?

The bypass options based on preferred choice in the consultation were: Option 10c – 30.8%; Option 10d – 20.8%; Option 10a – 17.2%; Option 10b – 16.2%; Option 8b – 15.9%; Option 8a – 14.9%; Option 9a – 11.9%; Option 9b – 11.0%; Option 9c – 10.8%.