People in Nottingham say a redesign of the city centre to make it less dominated by cars could cause "chaos" for road users. Nottingham City Council is working on making the city centre safer for pedestrians and cyclists.
In particular, it received £12 million of Government funding last June to improve the area around Angel Row and Maid Marian Way. Council documents now say a specialist design consultant has been hired and plans are ready to go to public consultation.
Ahead of the anticipated start of the consultation next month, people have been expressing their fears about what the redesign could look like. Asif Jarral has been a taxi driver for 21 years, and says taxi drivers already face problems when driving in the city centre.
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The 50-year-old said: "Taxis and public hire already have restrictions. There are narrow roads and buses that get close to us, you have to be careful and sometimes we are scared.
"Another problem is not being able to access Carrington Street, sometimes we have a wheelchair user and we need to assist them to the train station. [A redesign] will affect business."
Jasmine Burrow, 35, who works in IT and who was shopping in Nottingham, said: "I don't really know how they could redesign the roads. I don't really get the point, the town is busy enough as it is. There are always so many cars and changing the roads would just cause chaos I think."
But Morgan Scott, a 42-year-old builder, said: "It just depends on what they actually change and how they do it. I think it's good they want to make the area safer, it's just if the plans actually work and improve the roads. There's already plenty of traffic lights to cross safely and a few cycle paths so I'm not sure what they'd actually do.”
The council documents say that Nottingham-based civil engineering firm, BWB, has been hired to complete the outline redesign at a cost of £350,000. The council says the redesign will aim to "reduce pedestrian severance of Maid Marian Way and Upper Parliament Street" and "enhance pedestrian connectivity from the city centre towards Derby Road, the theatre district and Nottingham Castle."
Cycling infrastructure will be improved and more green areas will be introduced. The council documents also say that the plan is to "reduce the vehicular dominated layout whilst simultaneously providing improved pedestrian and cycling connections from parts of the city centre (north west and west) to the central core of Old Market Square." It
The work has come at a cost of £350,000, funded by the Future High Streets Fund money.
It is now ready to go for public consultation. Council delegated decision documents say: “A consultation exercise will take place will statutory consultees, key stakeholders and the public for a period of 3-4 weeks. Once completed, the detailed designs can be progressed, incorporating any changes deemed appropriate from the consultation. Further formal consultation will be required for the Traffic Regulation Order to accommodate changes to existing waiting and moving restrictions; this is a statutory process and will be carried out alongside the detailed design process, prior to the main construction works programme commencing.”
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