Decision details

Traffic congestion in and around Preston city centre has been a regular occurrence for some years. The improvement scheme for the Fishergate Public Realm has been welcomed and now provides a much more attractive and friendly space for those coming into the city centre. However, there continues to be an intermittent problem of congestion along Fishergate with a particular issue of delays for vehicles exiting the car parks serving the St George's shopping centre, the Fishergate shopping centre and Preston railway station. The delays created by the volume of traffic have an impact on Fishergate, with queueing traffic restricting the volume of traffic moving through the Lune Street/Fishergate/Chapel Street junctions.

This report sets out proposals to introduce traffic orders to manage the traffic flows in the city centre during the busy trading period from the end of October through to early January.

The proposals are set out on the plans at Appendices 'A' and 'B'.

County Councillor John Fillis, the Cabinet Member for Highways and Transport approved that:

(i)  the experimental order for the prohibition of the right turn from Butler Street is made permanent by the making of a Traffic Regulation Order,

(ii)  a new experimental order for the introduction of the bus gate on Fishergate between Butler Street and Corporation Street is made,

(iii)a new experimental order for the introduction of a bus street on Fishergate between Mount Street and Corporation Street operating between the hours of 11am and 6pm is made

(iv)a new experimental order to reverse the one-way operation of Mount Street so that traffic travels in a southerly direction from Fishergate to Garden Street is made,

(v)  a new experimental order  to make Garden Street one-way from Mount Street to Winckley Square is made,

(vi)an experimental traffic regulation order is made to relocate the disabled parking bays from Theatre Street to Fox Street and to introduce a goods vehicle loading  restriction on Theatre Street in place of the existing disabled parking spaces,

(vii)  an operating procedure for camera enforcement of bus lanes, set out at Appendix 'C', is approved and Notice is published under the relevant statutory Regulations before enforcement commences, and

(viii)  the proposals are funded from the 2016/17 Cycling Safety unprogrammed allocation within the highways capital programme.