I READ with interest your article in the Citizen titled Traders call for review of high street.
I myself am not a trader or connected with anyone trading on the high street. I am however a town centre resident and agree whole-heartedly, perhaps for different reasons, with the traders that Market Street should be re-opened.
If I remember correctly, Market Street was initially closed to traffic so the pavements could be widened and traffic made single file in either direction.
However, if my memory again serves me correctly, there were delays and problems with the works that led to extensions of the closure. Locally it was common knolwedge that the works carried out were something of a disaster, being difficult to tell where the pavements ended and the road began, a problem exasperated for the blind due to the low kerb height that was installed .
No doubt poor initial planning and the lack of anyone picking up on these problems in the early stages and during the works left us with the problem of a road that had become unfit for traffic. It seems to me that someone then had a brainwave and decided that pedestrianising this stretch of road would
save them from having to put it right.
It was then announced to the unsuspecting public that Market Street would now be a pedestrianised zone. No mention was made of why the original plan had gone out of the window. I do not know anyone other than the council who wants this road to be closed. Traders are suffering, traffic on Devonshire Road and its side streets must have doubled with people using these roads as rat runs to avoid the ringroad.
I emailed the SAFER CHORLEY website with my concerns about the resulting traffic problems who emailed me back saying my comments had been passed on and I would recieve a reply, naturally none came .
It is my belief that the pedestrianising of Market Street is nothing more than a cover up for the bungled road improvements. That the council does not listen to public feeling is blatently obvious. If they genuinely think that they are acting in the interest of the citizens of Chorley they should
hold a poll for town centre residents and traders, then we can end this fiasco and stand by the results.
It is my belief the council would be forced to re-open Market Street and then things could get back to how they should be.
Mr Michael Higham
Avondale Road
Chorley.
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