
Gosforth High Street – Good Policy, Terrible Plan

It is now over eighteen months since wands were installed on Gosforth High Street as part of the Council's response to Covid. This blog looks beyond the look and feel of the wands, focusing instead on their impact on traffic volumes, air pollution and road safety, and suggests specific actions that could be taken to help the High Street thrive in future. Read more [...]
It's almost a year since the wands were installed on Gosforth High Street to assist social distancing and to make it easier to walk or cycle. In that time we've all had a chance to experience Gosforth High Street differently, and to see what an alternative layout could look like. Read more [...]
With Covid-19 cases rising again, and Government lock-down regulations further restricting how businesses operate, it is more important than ever that local streets support social distancing so that people feel safe and can confidently go out and use local shops and services. Updated government guidance (at 23/9/2020) also reconfirms the recommendation that for local journeys you should "walk or cycle if you can" to "reduce pressure on public transport and the road network."
The Council Read more [...]
Newcastle City Council has published its plans to give more space to customers visiting Gosforth High Street, to allow remaining shops to open safely and comply with the Government's physical distancing rules. Read more [...]
In our last blog we shared how city transport planners are responding to COVID-19. In this blog we look at how people in Gosforth are using streets differently because of the pandemic and what Newcastle City Council could implement quickly in the short term to support that.
Although our own movements are as restricted as everyone else, we have been able to use the on-line traffic cameras from the Urban Observatory to see how people are using streets in certain locations.T Read more [...]
Sunday 10 November 2019 was Remembrance Sunday. As is traditional, local cadets and scouts paraded down Gosforth High Street and into Gosforth Central Park for a short service and to observe a two-minute silence in memory of members of the armed forces that lost their lives in the two world wars and later conflicts.
The Remembrance Day Service in Gosforth Central Park offers an opportunity to reflect and mourn for the past, and it is also an opportunity to pause and to examine the present. Read more [...]
In 2015, at SPACE for Gosforth's launch event we asked local residents, what do they like about the High Street and what could be improved? The Your Streets - Your Views survey gave us an opportunity to revisit this to see whether, three years later, these concerns were widely shared.
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