Council issue apology for Active Travel parking scheme

In last week’s Louth Leader, we reported that multiple independent businesses in Louth’s town centre are worried that the new Active Travel Scheme proposed for Louth would be the ruin of their businesses.

The authority’s “experimental order” which started last week included the removal of on-street parking on Mercer Row and the widening of pedestrian footways as part of an Active Travel Plan to make walking and cycling easier.

However, feedback from businesses and residents has seen it remove barriers and planters on Monday and only close off access to the Cornmarket.

Lincolnshire County Council’s executive member for highways, councillor Richard Davies, said: “We’ve listened to what concerns residents and businesses have expressed to us at the start of the scheme and we’re going to make changes in the appropriate way. Quite simply, we need to ensure that what we do fits in with the beautiful town that Louth is.

“In the first steps of this plan going live, we’ve not got that quite right and we’re sorry for the confusion that this has led to.

“As with every step of this experimental scheme, we’ve taken notice of feedback and by doing so we’re ready to make changes where appropriate.”

The scheme will last 18 months and councillor Davies said if it was not wanted at the end it could be “easily” removed.

Prior to the original changes, traders in Louth feared they could end their businesses as they tried to keep afloat following the COVID-19 pandemic.

Critics don’t believe people will cycle in from the villages and said elderly shoppers could be prevented from accessing the high street, with East Lindsey District and Louth Town councillor Andrew Leonard calling the changes - and the scheme as a whole - a “disaster”.

He said: “I am very much against the road scheme that has been foisted upon the traders in our town.

“The traders were supposedly consulted about this project; however, it has transpired that they were not, hence why it has caused such upset and loss of business.

“Had they had a proper chance to put their case then things might be very different.

“This is an 18-month trial, by which time businesses will have closed. Many of the traders are reporting significant losses already.

“I doubt if in 18 months there will be much to come and see in the town, just an empty high street like many others in the country. We are supposed to be levelling up the north, not knocking it down.”

Just one of the businesses concerned about the effect this will have on their trade is Meg Johnson and her family, who own Potty About Pets on Mercer Row.

Meg said: “They [the county council] have made a pig’s ear out of the whole thing.

“We’ve put everything we have into this business and we’re seriously worried about this, it’s a right mess.”

Fellow District and Town councillor Jill Makinson-Sanders said the council should have “thought this out better before starting the scheme”.

She said short-stay parking was needed to keep the market towns “vital and viable”.

“We are happy to see cafe culture but it must be done well, not the half-hearted attempt last year and the town only wants the Cornmarket closed from April to the end of September.

“We are asking people to sit out in what is essentially a car park, hardly attractive.”

She added: “The disabled are being disadvantaged, six parking spaces on the Market Place, which are hard to navigate, and only on non-market days, is contrary to the disability legislation.

“This is a town with frail, elderly and disabled residents. We must look after them and we must support our businesses too.

“This is not innovative, but a backward step.”