The group aiming to make major changes to traffic and parking in Llangollen is on the brink of confirming £2 million of investment for the town’s infrastructure, says its leader.
The news came from Llangollen county
councillor Graham Timms, chair of the 2020 working group, in a video detailing
its progress which was aired earlier this week on its own Facebook page.
Each of the group’s four members – two county
and two town councillors – contributed to the hour-long film, gave their own appraisals
of its performance since its formation four years ago.
Cllr Timms said they had gone online in
person with the update because newspapers were “losing readers” and social
media “often distorted healthy discussion”.
He began was saying: “We are on the brink of
confirming £2 million in infrastructure for the town and we’ll find out in the
next two weeks whether we have been successful.”
Fellow group member Roby Lovelock, a town
councillor, said she got two messages from residents when the group was set up
in 2017 – that it was “urgent and important to address the town’s long-standing
problems around parking and congestion,” and that there was a feeling
Llangollen had been missing out on opportunities from Denbighshire by being
side-lined to towns further north in the county such as Rhyl.
The other Llangollen county councillor who is
a member of the working group, Melvyn Mile, said it had received “incredible
support and encouragement” from the leader of Denbighshire County Council and
had drawn on the advice and expertise of its various departments including
highways and road safety.
He said the Welsh Government’s highways
officers had also been involved from the start, the area’s Assembly Member Ken
Skates had also been supportive and the group had received a visit from Welsh
Government Minister Hannah Blythyn.
The second town councillor in the group, Cllr
Austin Cheminais, who is now the Llangollen Mayor, explained that when they
realised they didn’t have sufficient expertise in traffic and highways to fully
develop solutions to the problems, Llangollen Town Council had “contributed and
secured” further European, Denbighshire County Council and Area of Outstanding
Natural Beauty funding to conduct a consultation and gather residents’ ideas.
He said: “A further consultation was held
which was led by our consultants and the Lllangollen working team.
“Once we’d gathered your ideas we worked with
the consultants to test them against what was allowed in law.”
County Cllr Timms came back to say:
“Denbighshire County Council have almost completed the final drawings.”
Putting a picture of a town centre up on
screen, he added: “This a picture from another town which broadly illustrates
the feel that we are trying to achieve on Castle Street.
“The paving colours will draw together the
greys from the square and the sandstone of the town hall. Sadly, there won’t be
enough rooms for quite as many trees as that [meaning the town in the picture]
but we’re working on getting as many as we can.”
He said that, separately, the group would publish
full details of the plan to be implemented from October 2021 but detailed the
main changes the project would introduce which were:
* Wider pavements and a narrower carriageway to
“maximise pavement space and slow traffic, improving safety for pedestrians and
cyclists”.
* Raised crossing points across Castle Street
junctions to “slow traffic and improve crossing safety, especially for those
with disabilities and small children”.
* Keeping Market Street to one way up as far as
the public toilets “after the Covid restrictions have finished in the town”.
* Installing loading bays on Castle Street and
Market Street and marking out disabled parking bays on Oak Street and Bridge
Street.
Cllr Cheminais returned to say: “Our
consultants Arcadis have developed solutions based on your ideas, research and
real-time traffic data. Further community consultations were held with more
opportunities to feed into traffic surveys and meetings.
“There were more articles in local papers,
Facebook Live sessions and more social media, all with the aim of refining
ideas proposed.”
Cllr Mile said: “One of the key areas of
feedback from these consultations was that the proposals didn’t go far enough
to resolve the issues of the parking problems facing the town especially in the
summer.
“So we’ve identified six groups with parking
needs – town centre residents who don’t have designated parking spots, pop and
shoppers, business owners and workers coming in for their jobs, disabled
drivers, visitors by car in their thousands and visitors by bus.
“So it’s not going to be easy keeping
everyone happy and discussions on this have been ongoing.
“This hasn’t been tried before and I know the
reason why – it’s a nightmare!”
He added: “We tested the ideas at a public
meeting, also with some discussion groups with people and businesses which
would be affected by the proposals. We took on board some of their suggestions,
for example loading bays on Castle Street.”
Cllr Lovelock said: “It’s all very well
having these plans but where is the funding?
“This is something that the 2020 working
group has taken on. We have met with numerous organisations looking for funding
opportunities, given many presentations to those agencies.
“We’ve written and drafted grant applications
and submitted them with the town council and submitted them with Denbighshire
County Council.”
Cllr Timms returned to say: “The good news is
that Denbighshire County Council has a project plan in place - a critical path
for delivery as they call it - and we’re working hard to keep to it. And so far
it’s on track even though we’ve had the coronavirus challenges this year.”
Cllr Mile added: “So, it might have taken a
bit longer than we anticipated, However, this project may be called Llangollen
2020 but it’s very much a Denbighshire project.
“People say that we never get anything out of
Denbighshire, that it all goes up to Rhyl. Well, that will change if we’re
successful in these grant applications.
“We’ll have a lovely new town centre, safer
for you the residents, safer for the thousands of visitors who come here and
it’s an environment where our businesses can thrive.”
* You can see the 2020 update at: https://www.facebook.com/llangollen2020/videos/370130353948136
