Please help to stop Derby city council wasting at least £90,000 taking out pavements and changing roads which were only laid two months ago and letting traffic back into the city centre.
The proposal is to allow traffic to revert to travelling straight across from Curzon Street into Cheapside and Wardwick into Friar Gate.
These manoeuvres were banned at the end of May, except for bikes, buses and taxis, as part of the inner ring road project (Connecting Derby) to create a safer, more pleasant city centre environment for shoppers, and better routes for people travelling through the city on foot, by bike or by bus. Cars are kept to the ring road, apart from to gain access to local areas and cannot not pass right through the city centre.
This proposal is a waste of money, and it is also badly planned and not thought through. The ring road was completed at the end of May and just two weeks later the council leader Philip Hickson declared that they were harming city centre trade and had to be revoked. However, no analysis of the cause of the reduced trade has been carried out, given that cars can still get access to every street they could before; no alternative measures have been considered and there is no evidence to say these changes will bring trade back.
The Connecting Derby project has created some great routes into and around the city centre for cycling and walking, but some of these improvements will be lost after just two months.
Please object in writing quoting:
Objection to the Revoking of Connecting Derby
Traffic Regulation Orders
to these people:
Nicola Weekly (e-mail [email protected] )
Traffic Management Team Leader
Neighbourhoods,
Saxon House,
Friary Street,
Derby DE1 1AN.
AND
Paul Robinson (e-mail [email protected] )
Director of Neighbourhoods,
Roman House
Friar Gate
Derby DE1 1XB
Please copy your objection to Councillor Hickson
and all three of your local councillors.
Derby City Councillors - Contact Details
Closure date for objections: Monday 22nd August 2011
If you want more information:
Key points for objection:
- A waste of £90,000 undoing recently completed street works, instead of spending it enhancing other parts of Connecting Derby, many of which were suggested by DCG members and given to the council by us.
- No proper analysis of the cause of a claimed fall in trade in the area has been carried out. We risk implementing something which will not solve the problem.
- Goes against the objective of creating a safer, more pleasant area for shoppers and for people travelling through by sustainable means
- This is a blinkered approach to transport planning, with unwarranted bias towards cars (which already have a new ring road) and an abandonment of any notion of an integrated transport policy.
- A lack of proper consultation, with Councillor Hickson bulldozing his own ideas through, disregarding local democracy.
Please bear in mind the following points relating to this issue:
- Cars can still access every street they could prior to the inner ring road opening and parking provision is virtually the same as before. The inner ring road has now to be used to get to some streets instead of cutting through the city centre on that tortuous old “ring road”.
- Some local traders and the Bold Lane car park are reporting reduced trade since the inner ring road opened. However no proper analysis of the cause of this fall in trade has been carried out.
- Derby Cycling Group are proposing alternative solutions to redress the perceived fall in trade in the Cheapside area, but Councillor Hickson will not consider these.
- We feel that the recent job losses at Bombardier, Egg and the Post Office will also be affecting trade, we need to know about trade in other parts of the city.
- Derby Cycling Group have suggested that better signage to the Cathedral Quarter car parks and promotion of the new Connecting Derby road layout could help to restore trade. However, Councillor Hickson has so far not agreed to meet with us to discuss the matter. He has decided by himself what should be done.
