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Newbury town centre 24-hour traffic ban to end next month




Vehicles have been prohibited from using Northbrook Street and Market Place to make it safer for pedestrians to socially distance

NORTHBROOK Street and Market Place will be open to traffic again between certain hours from September 7.

Traffic has been banned from the town centre 24 hours a day since June 1 to enable people to spread out and safely stay two metres apart.

The two streets are normally closed to traffic only from 10am to 5pm and West Berkshire Council has said this will still be the case.

The council said this date had been chosen to coincide with children’s return to school.

Council leader Lynne Doherty said the general consensus among businesses she had spoken to was that they wanted people to be able to drive past their shops and restaurants again.

She said that the pedestrianisation had “given residents the confidence to come back into the high street” and that social distancing would “be here for a long time and to tie it to that would be difficult”.

Council spokesman Martin Dunscombe said that facemasks now had to be worn in shops, which wasn’t in place when the traffic ban was introduced.

He said: “The reason was to support the local economy.

“It’s allowed shops to come back to the high street with confidence and space to queue outside shops, and businesses to get tables and chairs out. It was a temporary measure."

West Berkshire Council's executive member for highways and transport, Richard Somner, said: “Round the clock pedestrianisation was a really helpful measure to enable Newbury town centre to re-open safely.

“However, as we move further forward with the recovery and as schools return, we can return the pedestrianisation to the normal time of 10am to 5pm to ease pressure on local roads.”

POLL: Should traffic stay banned from Newbury town centre? Vote here



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