Welcome to the West of England Partnership website

The West of England Partnership brings together the four unitary authorities - Bath & North East Somerset Council, Bristol City Council, North Somerset Council and South Gloucestershire Council - and a range of social, economic and environmental partners. It co-ordinates high level planning to improve the quality of life of its residents and provide for a growing population.

The Partnership was formed to focus on things that are better planned at the West of England level, rather than at the level of the individual council areas. One example is major transport schemes, which have an impact on the West of England as a whole and which may cross the council boundaries.

Enhanced partnership working means changes are taking place to the organisational structure.

The West of England is a prosperous area with an excellent quality of life and a growing national and international profile. However, rapid growth and the changing current economic situation means that the area faces increasing pressure on its infrastructure (such as roads, parks, flood defences and services, eg electricity and telecommunications). In addition, there are too many neighbourhoods which do not share in this prosperity.

We must also adapt the way we live and plan to address the effects of climate change and to sustain economic growth. The Partnership was formed in response to all these opportunities and challenges.

This website tells you more about the Partnership and helps you to keep up to date by downloading reports and papers of meetings and events. 

Success for all 5 major transport schemes

Annoucements by the Government on 14 December and in the Chancellor's Autumn statement mean that the West of England has secured funding for all five of our transport schemes – the full rapid transit network and packages of improvements in Bath and Weston-super-Mare. That’s £136 million here of government funding , a £244 million total ( quarter of a billion…) investment in transport.

The three rapid transit schemes (Ashton Vale to Bristol City Centre, North Fringe to Hengrove Package and the South Bristol Link) form a network which will bring a step change in new public transport provision to the greater Bristol area. The rapid transit network serves the Temple Quarter Enterprise Zone supporting the creation of 17,000 new jobs, the South Bristol employment area supporting 10,000 new jobs and the Science Park (including the National Composite Centre) and Filton/A 38 enterprise areas (supporting 13,000 new jobs), linking new housing areas and addressing congestion hot spots.

The Bath Transportation Package supports the 9,000 new jobs expected as part of the Bath City Riverside Area (that has an expected GVA of £11billion over a 30 year period).  The Weston Package is key to the Weston-super-Mare Gateway Enterprise Area that will bring 11,000 new jobs to the area.