Chaos on East Bristol's Roads
- keepbristolmoving
- Jun 18
- 6 min read
Traffic not evaporating anytime soon...
Jun 16, 2025
In this post I simply want to highlight what many Bristolians are facing from today for the next two weeks, with the closure of yet another road in East Bristol and the consequent further negative effect on traffic, journey times, expense, pollution, likelihood of accidents, and general increased stress.
A week ago, on 9th June, local reporter Tristan Cork published this piece in the Bristol Post. He describes how Bristol City Council had announced the closure of Crews Hole Road in East Bristol from today for a period of two weeks, in order to install ‘traffic calming measures’. He also explains the fears people in the area have regarding the increased pressure this will have on a road system already pushed to its limit at busy times of day.
On 10th June the EBLN team at Bristol City Council announced the closure via their June update email:
On the back of the closure of Beaufort Road last November, the council’s March nighttime raid to close several more roads in Barton Hill and Redfield, and the recent installation of bus gates (that will start to make revenue for the council in July), this fortnight of yet another important thoroughfare closed to Bristolians trying to go about their daily lives has just added insult to injury. To many it feels like the council is trying to do the exact opposite of making their city safer and more pleasant.
Here is what some of them had to say today:
That was a lovely treat being stuck in all that traffic at 3.30pm and all the pollution going into a primary school.Sarah (WhatsApp)
I left to go home from by the fruit market to Avonvale road at 4.20 and I've just arrived now! [5pm]😡🥵 Most of that time was on the spine road and Lawrence Hill roundabout. Church rd was moving but when u have to turn right by Bethesda cos of all the cars coming down church rd only 1 car can turn right before the lights change. Used to be a 5 min drive at most now it's nearly 40 mins and it's like that every day there and back 🙃Basically a 1.1 mile journey that used to take 5 mins at most is now a 2.8 mile journey and takes at least 30 mins. Previously from Avonvale road (Hamblins side) just went down Marsh Lane onto Feeder road and now have to go past Avonmeads up the spine road and into Lawrence Hill roundabout and up church road to Bethesda then turn right. That part of Avonvale road is my only entry and exit point to get anywhere.Emmeline (WhatsApp)
I just drove back from Backwell. I kid you not, no traffic until Trinity church! Lawrence hill roundabout is dreadful. It's a massive pile up waiting to happen.Rachel (WhatsApp)
It took us 1 hour 12 mins to get from the Wellspring surgery up to Air Balloon school 😡. That was always an 11 minute drive. In this heat it wasn't fun I can tell you.36 mins to "drive" from the lock keepers cottage to get onto Church Road. How is that "Green" and better for the planet ??I wish those who are for this dreadful scheme would stand on Fireclay road and Blackswarth road to understand the amount of fumes that are there now.Where's LR, to see what an absolute nightmare those roads have become ??It was bad enough when it was just Beaufort road closed, but adding Victoria Avenue has created chaos.With Crews Hole closed now too, it's making life harder and more expensive for everyone.All this just so a few children can play on the roads, when there's a perfectly good park less than a 5 minute walk away 😡.Nicola (WhatsApp)
At about 8:20 this morning the queue of traffic going up Lawrence Hill from Lawrence Hill Roundabout was so long it was gridlocking the traffic trying to get around to head towards the M32. Which I've never seen before.This afternoon at about 3:15 the traffic was queued from Lawrence Hill Roundabout back to the M32. This is becoming the norm.Well done Bristol City Council you have caused slow moving traffic (if it can move at all), which as we all know causes air pollution. You are going to be putting more strain on the all ready over stretched NHS with cases of lung disease caused by dirty air. The poor health and possible deaths will be on your hands.Lee (Facebook)
The following maps will only make complete sense to Bristolians, but you will nevertheless see the problem. Locals are clear the traffic has got much, much worse since March.
So what is really going on here? It is highly unlikely the Transport and Connectivity Committee members had no idea what closing all these roads would do to the traffic, even though they are being accused by some of astonishing naivety. Any child can tell you what will happen to traffic if you close off a road.
Although many are still reluctant to see it, the whole object of this exercise - of the Living Nightmare projects - is exactly that - to make driving such a nightmare for Bristolians that they simply give up in despair. This is how the ‘traffic evaporation’ councillors like St George’s Rob Bryher (formerly Telford) insist will happen works. It’s not using a gentle nudge to change behaviour. It is those who have been elected into public office arrogating the right to force those they are supposed to represent to do so by making their lives a misery until they give in. Or as Rob euphemistically describes it, ‘moving the Overton Window in conversations about car ownership, storage and use’.
Why would councillors like Rob Bryher and Ed Plowden want to do this? They say it’s about wanting us all to lead ‘happier, healthier and safer’ lives, which they equate with abandoning private cars and walking and cycling everywhere (Rob, for example, used to work for Possible, an environmental charity which campaigns for car-free cities, and I have written about Ed here). They don’t trust us to know for ourselves what makes us happier, healthier and safer, or even ask if being molly-coddled into a state-enforced state of safety that takes away personal agency and risk is something we quite fancy. They don’t appear to understand that happiness and health are dependent on this very sense of agency, as well as the very ability to simply get to school and work, see friends, access leisure activities and so on.
Or maybe they do understand this, but really don’t care? This is, I suspect, where we get to the heart of the matter and what is really driving this astonishingly unempathetic treatment of those they are in theory elected to serve. As many are already aware, the driving force behind the Living Nightmare schemes is not really our health and happiness, but an ideology.
This is where it gets complicated. Net Zero, the agenda (being pushed by most political parties, not just the Greens) that says we need to become ‘carbon neutral’ to save the climate, and by extension life on earth, preys upon our very real concerns about what is happening to the planet and how much we humans are responsible for it. It oversimplifies ‘climate science’, leaves out crucial factors, and relies heavily on the unhealthy sense of guilt felt by people who genuinely mean well.
It will need be the subject of a future piece.
In the meantime, it may well be that BCC have overplayed their hand in their eagerness to evaporate private cars in the city without discussing it properly with those who live here first, and had not quite realised how hard people would fight back. The more force the council uses the worse their look. East Bristolians are persisting in calling them out, and need our support, because in the end this will affect us all. Please follow the East Bristol Open Roads Facebook page and stay in touch with Keep Bristol Moving here. If you live in South Bristol, please read this.
Onwards and upwards!
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