Gosforth High Street – September 2018. Definitely not a Safe Pedestrian and Cycling Environment.

Newcastle City Council has proposed a new layout for Gosforth High Street. SPACE for Gosforth is very concerned this plan won’t make the High Street any safer, doesn’t do anything to improve the shopping environment and doesn’t appear to be the result of any meaningful community engagement. 

Less than three months ago, in November 2022, Councillors unanimously supported a motion saying Gosforth High Street proposals should be designed to the “highest possible safety standards for both pedestrians and all road users”.

As well as asking Council Cabinet to prioritise safety, the motion proposed by Gosforth Councillors asked that future plans should:

• Support the development of Gosforth High Street as a thriving local destination with a diverse range of shops and services.
• Enable low-carbon transport options to enable people travel to, along and across the High Street, cut pollution and support the city’s ambition to achieve net zero by 2030.
• Enhance the green infrastructure on Gosforth High Street, in line with the Council’s commitments on biodiversity and maximising nature-based ways to reduce air pollution.
• Achieve these benefits as soon as possible, but not without meaningful engagement with local residents about the options and impacts of various schemes.

Councillor Byrne, Cabinet Member for Transport, who is responsible for signing off transport plans including Gosforth High Street, responded with the amended motion that was voted on. This motion was supported by the Leader of the Council, other members of the Council Cabinet, as well as Councillors from across the city and in Gosforth.

Gosforth High Street is one of the most complex and congested roads in the city, with multiple competing demands all in a relatively small space. Before 2020, it suffered from high levels of air pollution and a poor safety record, in part due to the prioritisation of through-traffic over its role as a local destination. Consultations and community-engagement have come and gone, but none have succeeded so far in coming up with a sustainable long-term plan.

The motion doesn’t provide an answer to all the trade-offs needed, but it does at least provide a baseline and some common ground to work from. Whether you walk, ride, drive or take the bus, no sensible community-minded person is going to want others to be harmed just so they can save a few seconds over a short stretch of road. 

Unfortunately, despite unanimous agreement at Council, we seem to be no further forward.

Dissonance

On Thursday 9 February 2023, the Council outlined its plans for Gosforth High Street in a confusing and, at times, contradictory news article “New bus priority measures for a key transport corridor to be introduced“.

The main features of this appear to be:

• Removing the extra pedestrian space, which to be fair was rarely used by people on foot though did make crossing the road a bit safer.
• Removing the limited protection for cycling north of Elmfield Road.
• Adding a north-bound bus-lane, possibly also to be shared with taxis and motorcycles.

Not only does this fail to support the motion that all Councillors supported, it pretty much does the opposite.

Anyone who has been involved in past consultations will know that it is not possible both to ‘Support the development of Gosforth High Street as a thriving local destination’ and to prioritise its function as a ‘transport-corridor’. One of the main themes from previous community feedback has been to ask the Council to stop treating Gosforth High Street as somewhere to pass through, and start focusing on Gosforth High Street as a destination.

By bringing forward this plan, Council leadership appear to have completely ignored its own Councillors who, only a few months ago, set out very clearly what they wanted: a thriving local destination designed to the highest possible safety standards enabling people to walk and cycle safely to, along and across the High Street.

The new plan:

• doesn’t improve safety on Gosforth High Street and potentially makes it worse, especially for people who might want to cycle.
• doesn’t create any new safe routes to enable more customers to walk or cycle to the High Street. 
• doesn’t do anything to improve the shopping environment.
• doesn’t appear to be the result of any meaningful community engagement. 

SPACE for Gosforth has submitted many ideas to improve Gosforth High Street over the years but none of these are included in the Council’s news article. 

We think the Council leadership needs to go back to the drawing board and come up with a new plan aligned to what they themselves committed to in November i.e. addressing safety concerns and prioritising Gosforth High Street as a destination, not a through-route.

Longer-term we would support a process similar to the Blue House workshops that brought together different interests to work collaboratively to come up with a consensus for a future layout.

If you wish to make your views known on this plan you can contact your local Councillors and the Cabinet Member for a Connected and Clean City, whose portfolio includes transport. 

According to the Council news article, the Council plans “to install the bus priority changes in the coming weeks.”

The Newcastle City Council motion below, which was supported unanimously by City Councillors, is from the minutes of City Council November 2022.

The original motion was proposed by Councillor Woodwark, who represents Gosforth Ward. The amended motion below, that was voted on and approved unanimously, was proposed by Cllr Byrne who is the Cabinet Member responsible for transport in Newcastle.

Gosforth High Street’s future – motion approved by City Council November 2022

Council welcomes proposals to replace the bollards on Gosforth High Street with a permanent scheme developed collaboratively with people in the local area to make Gosforth High Street more people-friendly and improve facilities for active travel and public transport.

Council notes:

• The bollards imposed on Gosforth High Street during the COVID pandemic have not been used as intended and have outlasted their intended timeframe
• That District Centres across the City have suffered in some part from the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic, with support from the Council in improving those areas City wide.
• That Gosforth High Street has had unacceptable pollution rates for a number of years, despite several interventions by the Council
• The opportunity this heralds to help achieve the City Council’s Climate Change Emergency goals, reducing harmful emissions in this important part of the City.

Council resolves to ask Cabinet to ensure proposals for Gosforth High Street:

• Support the development of Gosforth High Street as a thriving local destination with a diverse range of shops and services.
• Are designed to the highest possible safety standards for both pedestrians and all road users, including LTN1/20* which was recently adopted as the standard by Cabinet.
• Enable low-carbon transport options to enable people travel to, along and across the High Street, cut pollution and support the city’s ambition to achieve net zero by 2030.
• Enhance the green infrastructure on Gosforth High Street, in line with the Council’s commitments on biodiversity and maximising nature-based ways to reduce air pollution.
• Are delivered urgently to achieve these benefits as soon as possible, but not without meaningful engagement with local residents about the options and impacts of various schemes.
• Are consistent with City Council policy and motions as set out above.

*Local Transport Note (LTN) 1/20 is the Government guidance for local authorities for designing high-quality, safe cycle infrastructure.