Brainstorming session on high street described as 'positive'
Wednesday, 11th September 2013.
Around 40 stakeholders gathered for an all-day brainstorming session about traffic in Haverhill High Street today.
It was a workshop organised by Suffolk County Council, but led by independent facilitators so council representatives could listen to all the views expressed.
Divided into groups, the invited cross-section of Haverhill community worked on a variety of different ideas about how the town centre could develop in the future.
The meeting was held in Haverhill Arts Centre, but the groups also spent an hour in the main streets, carrying out a 'walking audit'.
Suffolk County Council representatives, among them the council's new transport portfolio holder Cllr Graham Newman, were able to see at first hand how much traffic uses the 'shared space' on a normal morning.
Members and officers of St Edmundsbury Borough Council and Haverhill Town Council were joined by representatives of the traders and business community, as well as residents and shoppers, students from Samuel Ward and Castle Manor academies and the disabled.
Among the ideas looked at were full pedestrianisation 24/7, part pedestrianisation or shared space, and re-opening the high street to one-way traffic and creating shared space and pinch points in Ehringshausen Way instead.
Each idea was worked up with additional elements such as closing the Swan Lane-Camps Road link, and building a southern rear access road.
The results will be displayed at a stall in the market area on Saturday for trhe public to comment upon and add their input.
The facilitators will then complete a report on the exercise which will inform the local authorities in their decision-making on the next stage.
At the end of the session Cllr Newman said it had all been very positive and thanked people for coming.
But he also betrayed the council's continuing to favour shared space when he said it was not going to be possible to enforce a traffic ban.
"The Government is running away from any ongoing expenditure, so you are never going to get a policeman to stand there all day and stop people," he said.
"You have to move to a situation where people who have been driving and parking down there in the past say: 'We don't do that any more.' And that is difficult."
Suffolk County Council's online survey will also be taken into account in the final report, but town clerk Will Austin warned that not too much weight should be given to it because it had been poorly devised and was now known to have been open to manipulation.
It was a workshop organised by Suffolk County Council, but led by independent facilitators so council representatives could listen to all the views expressed.
Divided into groups, the invited cross-section of Haverhill community worked on a variety of different ideas about how the town centre could develop in the future.
The meeting was held in Haverhill Arts Centre, but the groups also spent an hour in the main streets, carrying out a 'walking audit'.
Suffolk County Council representatives, among them the council's new transport portfolio holder Cllr Graham Newman, were able to see at first hand how much traffic uses the 'shared space' on a normal morning.
Members and officers of St Edmundsbury Borough Council and Haverhill Town Council were joined by representatives of the traders and business community, as well as residents and shoppers, students from Samuel Ward and Castle Manor academies and the disabled.
Among the ideas looked at were full pedestrianisation 24/7, part pedestrianisation or shared space, and re-opening the high street to one-way traffic and creating shared space and pinch points in Ehringshausen Way instead.
Each idea was worked up with additional elements such as closing the Swan Lane-Camps Road link, and building a southern rear access road.
The results will be displayed at a stall in the market area on Saturday for trhe public to comment upon and add their input.
The facilitators will then complete a report on the exercise which will inform the local authorities in their decision-making on the next stage.
At the end of the session Cllr Newman said it had all been very positive and thanked people for coming.
But he also betrayed the council's continuing to favour shared space when he said it was not going to be possible to enforce a traffic ban.
"The Government is running away from any ongoing expenditure, so you are never going to get a policeman to stand there all day and stop people," he said.
"You have to move to a situation where people who have been driving and parking down there in the past say: 'We don't do that any more.' And that is difficult."
Suffolk County Council's online survey will also be taken into account in the final report, but town clerk Will Austin warned that not too much weight should be given to it because it had been poorly devised and was now known to have been open to manipulation.
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