The Voice of Spalding and South Holland
Facelift plans for Spalding town centre include “embarrassing” errors and have “simply not been thought through”, according to a group which campaigns to protect the town’s character.
Spalding and District Civic Society has welcomed a strategic review which looked at ways the town centre could be made more “people friendly”, but said some of the ideas in the report commissioned by South Holland District Council lack real awareness of some of the issues.
The ideas include making an area of New Road and the Sheep Market vehicle-free and turning the Crescent into a “pedestrian priority” area.
Other suggestions include an on-street bus station in New Road and getting rid of 16 parking spaces in Market Place.
The Civic Society’s John Charlesworth said: “The society welcomes the report’s key recommendation, repeated again and again: the need to drastically improve the attractiveness of the town centre as a place for people to visit, gather and socialise and not just shop.
“The report calls for more seating and greenery to encourage shoppers and visitors to linger in the centre and more widely it recommends bus stops closer to the actual centre.
“All this is welcome and the society has been urging these ideas for itself for some time now.
“It is disappointing however to find the report relying largely on questionnaires and Google searches instead of getting to know the town properly.
“Some of the resulting errors are embarrassing, such as showing the traffic flowing the wrong way down High Street and calling for the removal of the non-existent kerbs in Red Lion Street.”
And Mr Charlesworth says plans for a pedestrian priority area in The Crescent show no awareness that it is a major traffic route for vehicles crossing over High Bridge and asks how service vehicles would exit the town centre if the area of New Road outside Bentleys was pedestrianised.
But he added: “Whatever the shortcomings, they do not detract from the report’s crucial message: the need to improve the town centre’s attractiveness.
“Everyone agrees that the market is a key part of that – shoppers, visitors, stall-holder, retailers alike, as the consultants found.
“It follows that measures to enhance the town centre and revitalise the market would be both profitable and popular.”
Any changes to Spalding town centre need to make it more wheelchair friendly, many shops are still 20+ years after the disability act inaccessible due to steps. This makes good business sense as the percentage of older people in town is set to increase many of whom will have mobility issues. Some of the things I have seen on my many visits just do not seem to make sense and make wheelchair users lives even more difficult. Planners need to get on board with accessible planning making the town fit for all regardless of ability.