Work has begun on widening city centre streets ahead of shops reopening next week.
The works in the Old Town and St James’s Street are part of a series of measures Brighton and Hove City Council has drawn up to spend its share of the Government’s emergency travel funding – the highest per capita in the country.
The council only submitted its proposals on Friday, but work has already started to make it easier for people to socially distance as the city begins to reopen.
Other locations earmarked for pavement widening are Western Road, The Clock Tower and elsewhere in the Old Town and the North Laine.
Parking will also be reduced in the Old Town and North Laine, new temporary cycle Lanes placed on Kings Road and Preston Road and CCTV installed to enforce cycle lanes.
The city has been given £594,000 under the first tranche of the Government’s £250 million emergency travel fund.
And if it uses the money in the way the Government is asking – to “meaningfully alter the status quo on the road” – it has been promised another £2.367 million to make more permanent changes later on.
This is interesting and we’ll have to see what the benefits or otherwise are.
Some people have called for the pedestrianisation of St James’s street for years but the traders have opposed it. Here, they are removing the taxi rank outside Morrisons, and all the loading bays further up. The businesses have not been consulted. it will still be a bus route, so that’s good news.
Superdrug lost my business there yesterday because I couldn’t stop there as part of my journey to several other places. I will now have to use another branch of that business.
When the recession really hits this autumn, we have to wonder which of these businesses will still be there. As it is, it’s very sad to see so many remixes boarded up.
Similar changes in the Lanes and North Laine will also see the loss of loading bays and the few parking spaces there were there. Far from helping the area these changes will make it more difficult for retailers to trade in what was already a low traffic area.
For those of us adhering to social distancing at 2metres, we will still have to step into the road section when passing people.
The chilling sentence in this report is the one about the ‘temporary’ seafront cycle lane. Another act of self harm for the city, brought in without consultation by those motivated by ideology over common sense.
In all of these changes and loss of parking spaces, there is no mention of any provision for disabled drivers. As it is there are rarely enough disabled spaces available, usually I have to opt for the 3 hours I can park on yellow lines.
I walked down St James’s Street to Morrison on Tuesday afternoon from Upper St James’s Street. Because it was hot I walked down on the south side in the shade. I use a rollator and usually cross the road opposite Morrison as in the parking bay the curb is lower making it easier to get my wheels onto the pavement.Couldn’t do thatas the barriers were in the way.
St James Street could have easily been paved both pavements and carriageway at the same level and use trees and bollards to control traffic. The road could be opened and closed for motorized traffic whenever needed as currently done with other roads in Brighton. This shared space option would have been much better than creating a step road step that not everyone can easily cross. I believe it would have also been an alternative that would have been welcomed by the campaigners of at James Street pedestrianisation.
Hope this is affordable pavements
astonishing back-door secretive anti-car Pedestrianisation = where will the disabled bay moved? no formal notice
Dear Nick Childs
We hope that you are safe and well.
We are residents of Dorset Gardens, Brighton, and our flat overlooks St James Street.
We were shocked to see work starting overnight on this road with the widening of pavements. We have had no consultation about these plans apart from a load of work men turning up one evening earlier this week. Not only has this been an absolute nightmare with loud drilling from the early evening all the way through into the early hours of the morning . We have also seen that the new pavements seem to be replacing the loading bays on the road. This has already caused mayhem on the road with the delivery drivers having nowhere to park. They are now parking on the side roads, parking on and blocking payments and the roads , this is a massive safety issue. We have issues with this before with delivery drivers dropping off at 4am, being extremely noisy . This is a whole new level of distress and disruption for our community that is totally unnecessary.
We feel that it is really unacceptable and would like to how this can be agreed without and consultation of residents who pay 1000’s in Council Tax every year ? Is this is a permanent change and if so where does the council expect the delivery drivers to go without loading bays? Who agreed to the overnight work and why can’t this be completed during the day time?
Thank you for your assistance
Dorset Gardens Resident.
We live down madeira place…high powered drilling starting at 10pm, totally unacceptable
People have to go to work not everyone has had the choice to stay at home over the last 13wks..
Like myself I have to get up at 4.50am to do an 9hr shift… I’m now gonna do that tomorrow on no sleep. Thank you, hopefully my boss will understand??? Maybe I should look at not being a key worker in the future
I really feel for the courier drivers ! Complete madness taking away loading bays 👎
Key workers have been taken for granted !
Could have at least given free travel ✌️
I recently emerged from 12 weeks of shielding & visited London Road to buy fresh produce from the open market as I was sick of eating out of tins & I prefer to support local businesses, also as a disabled badge holder I had previously been able to park close enough to able me to hobble about & get what I need. I was horrified to find the disabled bays outside Poundland had been obliterated with Tarmac & the long strip of spaces from super drug to pound stretcher had been reduced to 3 spaces! 1 was for disabled badge holders,but was occupied by a non badge holder who thought putting their hazards lights on worked in the same way!, & 2 pay and display spaces also occupied.
I would have thought the market would really need the support from local people during this extremely difficult time & the removal of these spaces will impact that.