Pedestrians face four lanes of traffic to shop

Many people walking to Newark’s new Asda development will have to dash through gaps in four lanes of moving traffic.

Others will face a split trip across the road to the precinct’s main entrance, waiting twice for crossing lights to change.

Newark Civic Trust has criticised the plans, which it says treat pedestrians badly.

It says that wherever motorists and walkers meet, those on foot take second place.

An illustration by the developers of the approach from Cartergate shows pedestrians wandering casually across the road at Beaumond Cross, with one car just visible in the background.

The Civic Trust’s planning committee chairman, Mr Bill Davidson, said: “This idyllic scene would never be realised under the proposal, which would provide no better facilities for pedestrians than those they currently enjoy, crossing each half of the road under green man control.”

Mr Davidson said pedestrians were treated badly on Portland Street and Lombard Street where vehicles had been given priority.

He said walkers would have to dash across the roads when there were gaps in the traffic.

He said people would have to walk across four lanes of traffic at the entrance to the supermarket and new doctors’ surgery, without lights controlling traffic.

He said: “It does seem perverse that a scheme supposed to attract shoppers and complement the existing retailing centre of the town should be so consistently hostile to their requirements for safe passage on foot.”

The supermarket scheme, which include ten shops, flats and sheltered housing, a doctors’ surgery and a health centre, should have been completed more than a year ago, but it is still awaiting planning permission.

Newark and Sherwood District Council, which chose Asda after secret talks, has continued to conceal from the public any information about the schemes proposed by other bidders.

There have been widespread objections to plans to move the bus station to The Wharf, and Nottinghamshire County Council has now agreed to reconsider its objections to buses at the Potterdyke.

Mr Davidson said they were not happy about the loss of 30 parking spaces from The Wharf.

They were also concerned about the narrowing of pavements and the loss of a crossing refuge on Bargate.

Mr Roger Allton of Brewers Wharf, Newark, co-ordinated a petition against having a bus station at The Wharf.

Mr Allton said the intervention of English Heritage, which raised strong objections to the facility being beside the Newark Castle, may have persuaded the council to think again.

A district councillor, Mr Peter Harris, said he had been calling for eight months for county highways officers to attend a meeting so they could explain why they had objected to a bus station remaining at Potterdyke.

He said: “This has all been done in secret. They have never been prepared to explain their decisions in a public forum and that is disgraceful.

“Similar developments have happened elsewhere where you have cars, buses and delivery vehicles entering one site, so why can it not happen here?

“Their views need to be challenged and there is now a planning application which they can talk about.”

The district’s head of planning, Mr Mike Evans, said an interim report explaining the current position of all those involved would go to a meeting of the planning committee on February 12.

He said it could not be taken to January’s meeting because they were waiting for clarification of English Heritage’s objections.

The county council’s director for strategic and environmental services, Mr Jas Hundal, said they had regular talks with the interested parties about proposals for the new bus station.

He said there had been a meeting last week with two representatives from the petitioning group objecting to the siting of the bus station at The Wharf.

He said that council had frequent meetings with representatives from the district council to discuss the bus station.

Mr Hundal said it was not possible to attend the district council’s policy scrutiny committee meeting in December about bus provision in the Newark area.

He said: “The Potterdyke site remains the county council’s preferred location for the new bus station but we have a statutory duty to consider the highways impact of other proposals put forward by the developer.”

This artist’s impression of shoppers walking to the planned Potterdyke development is misleading, says Newark Civic Trust, as traffic will be just as heavy as it is now and shoppers will still have to wait twice at traffic lights to cross the road.