CURRENT arrangements for Broad Street – which is closed to traffic – are ‘confusing to the public’, according to a recently released report.
Vehicles were blocked from driving down the St Helier road following the reopening of non-essential stores to allow social distancing to be maintained. The route had been due to reopen to traffic in May, but a successful proposition by St Helier Constable Simon Crowc roft kept it shut on a trial basis, with an amendment allowing buses to return to the area.
Now, the Broad Street Project Board – comprising government head of transport Tristen Dodd, Chamber of Commerce chairman Paul Murphy and St Helier town centre manager Connor Burgher – has released a report, which states: ‘It is clear from our own experience and the feedback from interviews that the current temporary arrangements are confusing to the public.’
They have urged Infrastructure Minister Kevin Lewis to bring forward interim projects to improve the ‘look and feel’ of Broad Street in 2022, listing three potential short-term and pilot projects.
These include a scheme to join the ‘disparate styles’ of Charing Cross and King Street, which the board said would create a unified streetscape, improve connectivity and enliven the environment from Charing Cross to York Street. The second suggestion is to designate the entrances to Broad Street, New Cut and Library Place to show a change of road use, as the ‘current junction that forms Conway Street and Broad Street does not designate a change in road use from a thoroughfare to a road with restricted use’.
The last proposal includes refurbished paving, with the board observing that parts of the road surface and ‘street furniture’ along Broad Street looked ‘tired and unloved when compared with the pedestrianised King Street’.
The board also urged Deputy Lewis to adopt their recommendations ‘to create a timetable for a firm decision on the future of the street’.
It recommended that the minister obtained ‘greater and more detailed information’. Further data was required ‘to paint a fuller picture of the way the area currently functions and could function in the future’, the report said.
The board also said that the future of Broad Street needed to be integrated with two significant developments – emerging proposals for the J1 building project, with planning approval for a mix of office space, retail units and parking potentially on the cards, and with the site’s owners Le Masurier Ltd considering further changes to the approved scheme that could get approval late next year. And, the board explained, the future of the street also needed to take into consideration the new government offices on the site of Cyril Le Marquand House.
The board urged Deputy Lewis to allow these proposals to be ‘fully developed’ before considering any changes to the traffic arrangements currently in force.
‘As we unwind from the changes in the way we have lived our lives through the Covid outbreak, we need to recognise that default to the way it used to be is neither likely, nor will it best serve the future of St Helier,’ the board added.
