CONTROVERSY surrounding the closure of Broad Street to general traffic was acknowledged during a Scrutiny hearing – in which a senior civil servant said that the move had “worked”.
Associate director for transport Tristen Dodd told the Environment, Housing and Infrastructure Scrutiny Panel on Wednesday that, while there had been “noise very early on” from some affected retailers following the change, this had “disappeared relatively quickly and has not come back”.
Last year, it emerged that the government was seeking to make further changes to Broad Street, which was initially pedestrianised in 2020 due to pandemic-related overcrowding concerns.
The first phase of a “wider public realm improvement project for the Grande Rue district” is due to be carried out this year.
This includes work to “improve the threshold area from Lloyds Bank to the Post Office”, including the creation of a “pedestrian priority area” by resurfacing the street.
During the hearing, panel member and St Helier South Deputy David Warr asked about the impact of pedestrianising Broad Street.
Mr Dodd explained that the pandemic had initially driven the closure, but added: “What we found was – and this was really a trial by accident in some respects – actually, it worked and we could adapt the network.”
He continued: “It worked in terms of, we had relatively free-flowing traffic elsewhere, we were able to reallocate parking spaces to support people with disability, we were able to accommodate deliveries,” noting that there had been “some noise very early on from some of the larger retailers”, but that this had “disappeared relatively quickly and has not come back”.
A petition requesting that Infrastructure Minister Andy Jehan “re-open Broad Street to vehicular traffic” had received over 1,200 signatures as of Wednesday afternoon.
