Campaigners have warned there is an accident waiting to happen in Bath as data shows a council liveable neighbourhood increased traffic past a primary school by 720 per cent.

Winifred’s Lane at the top of Cavendish Road was closed to through traffic on a trial basis in November 2024 as part of Bath and North East Somerset Council’s liveable neighbourhood programme.

Liveable neighbourhoods are intended to stop speeding on residential roads and make them safer and more pleasant for walking and cycling.

But even some of the few people who live on Winifred’s Lane — a narrow one way lane connecting Cavendish Road to halfway up Sion Road — were opposed to closing it to through traffic.

Traffic going north up the lower part of Sion Road past the exit of Kingswood Junior and Nursery School has increased from 116 vehicles per day before the trial to an average of 951 — an increase of 720 per cent.

On some days the number of cars heading northbound exceeded 1,100.

A spokesperson for the Heart of Lansdown Conservation Group said: “These figures are significant and extremely concerning, not least in terms of safety for school children, pedestrians and cyclists. The facts show unequivocally that more traffic now goes past junior schools and nurseries and onto heavily residential streets, which are unclassified and include roads within the proposed LTN itself.”

But Manda Rigby, Bath and North East Somerset Council’s cabinet member for highways, insisted: “Safety is always our first priority in any proposed new road scheme.”

“This is an experimental traffic restriction trial and it is the result of previous community engagement. Other trials have shown that the best method of introducing complex liveable neighbourhood schemes is through an ETRO because it gives us time to monitor the impacts of the scheme and for people to respond to changes before any decision is taken.”