Community leaders are calling on the council to transform a restaurant-packed road in Hove by making it a haven for pedestrians.
Hove Civic Society wants Church Road turned into Hove Boulevard and plans to present its ideas to Brighton and Hove City Council tomorrow (Thursday 7 April).
In a deputation backed by representatives of the Hove Station Neighbourhood Forum and Love George Street, the civic society’s chair Helmut Lusser said that the scheme would create “pleasurable public spaces”.
The civic society wants to see its “Hove Boulevard” idea included in the council’s “Local Transport Plan”.
But the council said that this was possible only if the proposals were fully designed and costed.
Hove Civic Society is seeking funding for design work and plans to ask the council to look at what money is available from developers’ contributions – known as section 106 payments and the community infrastructure levy – for sustainable transport and public realm improvements.
The society said that Church Road had changed over the years from a shopping high street to a centre for food and drink day and night.
Mr Lusser’s deputation to the full council said: “This provides a natural opportunity to create an attractive new ‘sense of place’ – by integrating pavement, loading and parking areas into high-quality, usable spaces, encompassing new street furniture, planting and outdoor seating for the restaurants, bars and coffee houses, and for giving people generally the kind of pleasant spaces where they can meet, socialise and spend time.
“With good design and planting, these improvements will transform the existing streetscape into a vibrant place for everyone to enjoy – our ‘Hove Boulevard’.”
The civic society believes that its “Hove Boulevard” scheme would show “how a major thoroughfare should look and function in the age of climate change mitigation”.
The council is due to meet tomorrow at 4.30pm, with a virtual public engagement meeting taking place before the formal meeting. The proceedings are scheduled to be webcast on the council’s website.
I can see some merits, but, as a resident of Church Rd for 26 years, I’m already suffering from the amount of extra volume generated by diners and revelers due to the expansion of these late trading licenses. The later licenses for drinking and entertainment cause disruption to residents during the week (I’m a chef, my partner is a teacher we both have early starts) It used to be much quieter, with diners dispersing by 10 in the week and midnight at weekends, but in the last five years it seems many more late trading permits have been granted around Church Rd/Medina Villas area.
Lol, aside from ruining the flow of OSR and the Seafront road now they want to cut off the main bus route in and out of that part of the world as well! I assume those making those decisions have not done an economic impact analysis on what the measures will mean to local businesses, seems like they are doing their utmost to make everywhere difficult to access and only really accessible to “local” people. About time they started reducing council tax to everyone that cannot afford the time and costs of getting into the city where our taxes seem to be wasted on ill thought through measures that make things less accessible!!!
Just let’s all calm down a minute and use our heads. George Street is pedestrianised between 10-4 Mon – sat. So deliveries can only be made by using the loading bays ( in this plan have been removed)
It is also a major bus route. There isn’t actually a massive amount of car traffic down here and the pavements are massive so I’m not really sure who’s bright idea this is. The southern side of the road is in the shade, so hardly a great place to put tables and chairs. Also people live here, maybe consult them first. A cycle lane granted should be put in but it doesn’t need to be excessively big. Just remember all those businesses have just been hit by the council for having commercial bins, so to make delivery impossible makes a massive problem for traders, this all affects if a business is profitable or not.
As a trader in George Street whoever love George Street group are? I’ve never heard of them. Maybe they want to focus on the lack of public bins and the disgusting level of graffiti and beggers before becoming defacto town planners
According to the government https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/951074/cycle-infrastructure-design-ltn-1-20.pdf Cycle lanes can be no less than 1.5 metres wide (preferably 2m wide) for one way traffic, with a kerb. People seem to forget that OSR was built at about the minimum size considered acceptable today.
Another vanity project with zero consultation of the people who live and run businesses here. Sounds like Brighton. Let’s close all the shops make them all overpriced coffee shops and buy everything on Amazon, lol then moan about capitalism…
So……..judging by this picture, it will still accommodate motor vehicles?
And of course this will add to the traffic and pollution along the seafront, which will become the nearest alternative route. It is already in a typically Green chaotic state, thanks to the abundance of cycle lanes there.
And with regard to Church Road becoming a centre for food and drink, are they not aware that we are now facing a period of huge inflation, and dining an drinking out will no longer be an option for many people. Will all those establishments survive? We already have masses of empty shops around the place. A “pleasurable public space” or yet another huge Green miscalculation?
The proposals are interesting but the name Hove Boulevard is as silly as the proposal to rename Queen’s Road in Brighton as Ocean Boulevard.
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