Reopening the pedestrian walkway through the Broadmarsh shopping centre is a ‘top priority’ for Nottingham City Council, with bosses working to open it ‘as soon as possible’.
The walkway has now been closed since the start of the month, leaving people with a much longer - and less pedestrian friendly - walk up Maid Marian Way or up the stairs next to Nottingham Contemporary.
Construction work on the Broadmarsh Shopping Centre stopped at the start of the COVID-19 lockdown, and never restarted.
On Friday, June 26, Broadmarsh and Victoria Centre owner intu announced it had collapsed into administration and appointed KPMG in a bid to protect itself from lenders over £4.5billion of debt.
Throughout the construction work, access to the walkthrough was limited to between 7am and 7pm, but as of July 1, the walkway was closed altogether.
Now, transport bosses at Nottingham City Council - which now owns the centre outright - have said they are working to come up with a solution as soon as safely possible.
John Lee is a rights of way expert at the council, and said: “When the development of Broadmarsh kicked off roundabout 18 months ago, intu applied for what’s called a temporary traffic regulation order, which was to prohibit pedestrian use of that route (overnight), so they could phase their development and work around the route between Listergate and Collin Street.
"That temporary order expired on the 6th of this month, which means it should really be open.
"The difficulty is how safe is it, because before we can open it up we need to find out how safe it is, what the development’s like above it as well, not just at the side of it. And when it is to be opened the only thing we could do was to look at actually fencing it, so it would be if you like a fenced corridor.
“Otherwise you’re likely to get the public tempted to go wandering round the Broadmarsh centre.
“At night, they used to put some sort of temporary barriers to stop the public just wandering off it, and I think the same thing would have to be there.
“It is a primary pedestrian route, so it is a priority to get it open.
“It’s on the radar, and it will be opened up as soon as possible.”
