More pop-up cycle lanes and timed road closures could be rushed through in Brighton and Hove before shops and schools are due to open in two weeks’ time.
Councillors from all three parties agreed the need for speedy progress towards a “healthy” recovery at the first meeting of the city council’s Policy and Resources Recovery Committee.
Labour, Conservatives and the Greens agreed to prioritise a cycling and walking programme, including closing streets around schools at pick up and drop off times before they reopen on June 15.
The council has already closed Madeira Drive to motorised traffic during the day and installed a pop-up cycle lane along a stretch of the Old Shoreham Road in response to the pandemic.
During the virtual meeting on Friday 29 May, Green group convenor councillor Phélim Mac Cafferty said there is a “small window” to change people’s habits, with the AA reporting callouts now back up to 80 per cent of the pre-lockdown level.
Councillor Mac Cafferty said: “We cannot come out of the Covid crisis and tumble back into the climate crisis.
“Residents who live along the seafront are telling me daily they would prefer the world to be quieter as it was during lockdown.
“We now need to just get on with achieving a city that will help us to recover well.
“We have pandemic that attacks our lungs. We have to do something about this through the recovery.
“We are a city with a centre with illegal levels of the toxic gas nitrogen dioxide and particulate matter which causes harm and death to people in the city.
“We have a disproportionate amount of people dying because of the problems caused by traffic.”
Councillor Mac Cafferty said Brighton and Hove is running behind places like Newcastle and London, which are moving “swiftly” to introduce more safe open spaces for pedestrians and cyclists.
Labour administration leader councillor Nancy Platts and Conservative finance spokesman councillor Joe Miller, put their names to the proposals.
Councillor Miller said as a proud owner of an electric scooter he said the city is “particularly nice” in its current form.
He said people are enjoying the quieter city where a balance is needed between the lockdown and life before.
Councillor Miller said: “This is a once in a generation opportunity to move people to cycle and walking, with the health and wellbeing benefits, the air pollution benefits and the climate change benefits that go with that.
“As part of the public space provision, we should consider giving space to businesses, with restaurants having more outside tables because capacity is reduced inside.
“We should consider using pavements and roads in the city centre, closing streets in The Lanes.”
Executive director for economy, environment and culture, Nick Hibberd said widening footpaths outside shops and by transport hubs is essential before more shops reopen on Monday, 15 June.
Mr Hibberd said: “The immediate priority for the council is to do our best to restart lives and the economy safely.
“The council wants to be able to do this properly to protect our residents.
“The recovery programme aims to do that to make sure when shops reopen they stay open and flourish.”
A Covid-19 walking and cycling plan is due to go before the Environment, Transport and Sustainability Committee on Tuesday, 23 June, with details published about a week before.
Cllr Miller says he is a proud owner of an electric scooter. For our information could he let us know where he bought one which is currently legal to use either on pavements or roads as I’ve been putting off buying one until it is legal to use them in public.
Is there really a Councillor who owns an electric scooter? He must have a massive driveway! If he comes near me on Madeira Drive he’ll get a steel bike frame round his chops.
This is encouraging. Here in Hove, I find that people have relished all the joy and talk that a stroll can bring. Who knows, if my kayak arrives in time I could ask a Council Question a hundred yards from shore.
My street roars with traffic as I read this. After lockdown I want to be safe using my power chaiir on existing dangerous pavements & the crossing that fractured my pelvis needs repair!
By all means increase pavement space BUT WHAT ABOUT MAINTENANCE?
You can just see these ideological idiots chomping at the bit during their Zoom meetings whilst the real world continues outside.
Here we are at the threshold of the biggest recession our country has known for decades and the worst collection of councillors we have seen in a generation are in charge.
They shut roads at a time when anything that gives people employment and helps public transport should be opened.
In fairness, their hands are tied by the lack of any budget to do much more than paint new white lines on a busy road to suit their own agenda.
In the meantime, our basic services – street cleaning, recycling. rubbish collection, pot hole repairs that affect cyclists worse than motorists, lifeguarded beaches, public toilet maintenance – are not being performed.
If Madeira Drive remains closed then sadly so will Yellowave and Concorde2.
Hove Resident
I use the Old Shoreham Road often and I am amazed at the hundred and hundreds of cyclists using the temporary cycle lanes, carpenters carrying tools and sheets of ply, workers on their way to Worthing and Arundel, bricklayers with bags of sand and cement, window cleaners balancing ladders on the crossbar. The last sentence is obviously made up as I have never seen more than one cyclist in the temporary cycle lanes. whoever came up with this idea lives in cloud cuckoo land. Brighton and Hove have some of the most incompetent councillors of any town I have lived in, and I talk as a cyclist and motorist
Madeira Drive can easily be reopened for specific events. You don’t need to open a road just for a bar to reopen. And Yellowave is indeed now open.