Region: Bath & North East Somerset

Bath and North East Somerset Council is advising visitors to plan their trips to Bath Christmas Market in advance and is encouraging people to use public transport, like the city’s Park & Ride service. 

Bath’s Christmas Market runs from 27 November to 14 December and is expected to bring a large number of people to the city, with last year’s event attracting around 444,000 visitors.

Councillor Manda Rigby, Cabinet Member for Communications and Community, said: “We are excited for what is sure to be another brilliant Christmas Market in Bath and to welcome visitors from around the world. We’re expecting the city centre to be busy, especially on the weekends, so please plan your journeys ahead of time and consider walking, cycling, taking the bus, the train or one of our three great Park & Ride services, which have come 2nd place again for user satisfaction in a national survey for the third year running.”  

To avoid delays to journeys, the council is advising visitors to consider all the different ways they can travel into Bath, especially on weekends. Bath is served by three Park & Ride sites, has a central train station and several bus operators providing services in and around the city. 

Bath’s Park & Ride sites are situated in Lansdown, Newbridge and Odd Down. They have a combined total of 2,806 car parking spaces with additional overflow parking available at Lansdown. Bath’s Park & Ride will be running longer into the evenings with additional services for the Christmas Market during the following times:

Monday to Friday: Every 10/15 minutes between 6:15am and 9pm, then every 30 minutes until 11:30pm.
Saturday: Every 5 minutes between 06:15am and 7pm, then every 15 minutes till 9pm, then every 30 minutes till 23:30.
Sunday: Every five minutes between 9am and 7pm.

During peak times extra staff will be on hand at all Park & Ride sites to help oversee queuing and ticket sales. For more information on Bath’s Park & Ride visit the Travelwest website. 

The Christmas Market is a short walk from Bath Spa train station, with regular train services from London Paddington, London Waterloo and Bristol Temple Meads. Great Western Rail will be running additional services on each Saturday of the Christmas Market. 

To help ease traffic congestion in the city during the event the council has placed an embargo on all non-emergency highway works on key routes

Original press release by Bath and North East Somerset Council