The high street of a town north of Bristol is “dying, deserted and desolate” according to a local resident.
Thornbury voted late last month to scrap changes to its high street introduced during the pandemic, with many concerned about the effect on local businesses. Seventy-two per cent of 2,567 voters said they wanted to scrap the changes, soon to be made permanent.
Despite the parish poll results, South Gloucestershire Council will push on with the changes, in a new £4.6 million scheme to make them permanent. Through traffic would be banned and parking bays removed, but deliveries and residents would still have access.
Read more: More than 6,000 people in South Gloucestershire likely suffering from ‘long Covid’
Now council bosses have been told the proposed changes are a “massive folly” to which the town “resoundingly objects”. One local resident raised his concerns about Thornbury’s high street during a South Gloucestershire Council cabinet meeting on Monday, June 13.
Andrew Chubb said: “The spend is just going to be, to my mind, a massive folly to make it absolutely permanent. At the moment Thornbury is dying during the week, there is just nobody there, it’s completely deserted and desolate of people.
“Thornbury Town Council held a special meeting where Cllr Steve Reade came and gave some feedback on the high street. I thought that was particularly poor, it didn’t do anything to alleviate some of the concerns that it was just a tick-box exercise. It was particularly poor and disrespectful to the residents of Thornbury.
“That result is quite resoundingly objecting to the changes on the high street. It’s not supported by the town, by those people who could get to the polling stations and who had a vote. I didn’t, living in a [nearby] village, but it affects me more than anything as I go to Thornbury shops. I don’t go there any more because I can’t park, it’s not convenient.”
Council leader Toby Savage denied claims the high street was “closed” and struggling for business. He added the council had consulted extensively with the public about the scheme, and made changes to plans after receiving feedback.
He said: “It’s open for business and traders want to be trading and people can access the high street. We’re one of the few councils in the country now that offer free parking, and we offer free parking in each of the three car parks within the town centre, because we want to be supporting people accessing the town centre, using the high street and local businesses.
“We’ve also introduced dedicated blue badge parking within the high street that’s been one of a number of pieces of feedback we’ve had over the lifetime of the scheme, that we’ve responded to positively. We have been out to talk to people a lot over the last two years, to ensure we have been capturing all those different views as best we can.
“Views are divided—there’s a range from both ends of the spectrum as well as a lot of people in the middle. It started off life as a full pedestrianisation, it’s not a pedestrianisation now and it won’t be as part of the vision. We all recognise the downsides of the interim scheme, but what we have in place at the moment is not a permanent scheme.”
