Abbeylands Residents

There is evidence that cyclists do not feel safe on our High Street and will cycle on the pavement. Despite very high numbers of young people cycling to school very few cycle on the High Street itself. There is also increasing evidence that pedestrians do not feel that it is safe to cross the street, even at the marked pedestrian crossings – let alone the informal passing places, which have had the distinctive cobbles removed. Yet the majority of drivers do observe low speeds. Only a minority do not and go faster than is really safe to (usually when the road is clear), even if they may be complying with the speed limit.

Continue reading Enhance safety for pedestrians and cyclists

There are literally dozens and dozens of ways to improve our High Streets and as you would expect some people have thought about this at greater length than me, so I am not going to give you an orthodox list. Some of the issues that are faced are structural and other problems deeply embedded (e.g. economic hardship), while some things still are likely to be cyclical, if you believe economic theory.

My list boils it down to a list of things that ‘we can do’. I believe we should be:

• building some form of partnership of local business and residents
  (but this implies releasing residents from apathy/disengagement and business from small mindedness)
• exposing the idea of place and identity, and above all experience and then developing a town brand (why should people visit our High Street if it ain’t really that great – let’s not pretend we’re better if we’re not)
• improving the look and function of the streetscape and streetscene (people visit and return to lovely places, even if they can’t afford everything and must be able to move adequately but without making it too easy to get away)
• examining how new entrants are attracted into the marketplace while keeping the best of the old (nudging out the worst sounds harsh, but importantly is there something we can do to attract viable new or novel businesses and business models? Aren’t there enough Pound stores and Take Aways?)
• looking at how the street is made accessible to all (but without obsessing about the motor car – if you think parking is a problem here then you need to get out more!)
• improving the feeling of safety and security (by which I mean safe to cross the road or cycle in the road without worrying that a car won’t stop because it is their legal right to run you over)
• extending trading into evenings and especially w/es, while ensuring the night-time economy isn’t detrimental to residents or other users the following day (pubs, convenience stores and take-aways please note that the excesses are sorted out by tax payers money, so I won’t be favouring anything that extends the convenience format)

Continue reading Ten things to improve Dunbar High Street