Written by Cllr Brian Smedley

Knock it down and start again.

I made good time all the way from Scotland. Eight hours including breaks.

Get to Bridgwater, standstill. Stuck in traffic, depot closed.

Why is Bridgwater so very bad for gridlock?

Well, we’re the victims of our own history. It’s the medieval shape of the town centre that’s still there today and every bit of modern transport technology has simply been added on and within years has been overtaken by development to render it obsolete.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge the poet used to walk from Bristol to Nether Stowey in the 1790s and even then, would rather cross the River Parret by a dangerous muddy causeway at Combwich than travel through Bridgwater.

The canal that was built to take freight around the town is now an inner city walkway and the railway that brought even more wealth and commerce was built on the edge of the town but is now very much in the town.

Yet at the same time as developments sprung up to the east of the railway line we were left with two dangerous and narrow pinch points in the form of road bridges across it.

People as recently as the 1960s will remember that Bridgwater was a town of traffic jams.

If you weren’t caught up in the middle of town where the A38 and A39 suddenly became one while they crossed town bridge, you’d surely be stopped at the Cross Rifles roundabout, which in them days was a railway crossing with mighty gates, just before the exit roads took you off to Bristol or Bath.

In the 1990s a new nuclear power station gave us the option to build a much-needed by-pass.

The power station didn’t get built, and the NDR became a feeder road as developers paid for it by building either side of it. By-pass no more.

By the 2000’s the power station finally did get built and we all re-clamoured for a by-pass, maybe from Dunball to Cannington.

What did we get? EDF tweaked the roads we already had – to get their larger loads round the corners.

In the 1980s they decided to pedestrianise Fore Street. “Please do this,” begged Marks and Spencer.

The council did. M&S moved out. Not even moving the Blake statue across the road helped.

So, Bridgwater has been a victim of its own history. Some towns knock down entire areas and start again from scratch.

But we’re caught between keeping the medieval shape of our town and buildings we all love and a one-way system that often doesn’t make a lot of sense. Yet keeps our heritage in place.

In years to come the car will play less of a part in all this. Not at the moment, people can’t bear to leave them at home.

But one day we’ll have to and that’s when we really can reclaim our heritage for people. Unless… with the advances in AI, the machines tell us not to…