A Keswick businessman has highlighted to the leaders of Cumberland Council how a bakery re-location is set to intensify traffic problems through the town centre.
Tim Fisher, who runs the Northern Lights Gallery on St John’s Street, has written to Mark Fryer and the authority’s chief executive, Andrew Seekings, outlining continuous “failures of infrastructure” which leads to vehicles travelling the wrong way down the one-way street outside his premises and coaches causing chaos as they come down into town from the A591.
Mr Fisher says that these problems are set to be heightened when Greggs moves from its current position in the Market Square to the former Thomasons butchers shop on Station Street.
“In the summer their (Greggs) footfall rises to around 2,000 sales each day,” says Mr Fisher in his letter to Mr Fryer. “Back-and-forth that’s roughly 4,000 crossings?”
Mr Fisher points out that approximately one car every hour drives down the one-way street, the wrong way, and adds that he has lost count of the number of bicycles which ride down St John’s Street, the wrong way, each week.
He said that on Saturday August 5 a tourist coach ended up travelling the wrong way down the street and referred Mr Fryer to an article which appeared on the front page of the July 21 edition of The Keswick Reminder. It was a report about a coach which caused damage to the Viridian art gallery after the driver was forced to carry out a complicated manoeuvre to extricate the vehicle after it became lodged while trying to turn into Derwent Street.
“What we are experiencing is a failure of infrastructure which is permitting coaches and HGVs to come down from the A591, down from the Ambleside Road and unsurprisingly they are struggling to navigate a very tight left turn into Derwent Street by the Alhambra Cinema, which then takes them down to the Borrowdale Road,” said Mr Fisher.
“Furthermore, I would add that any traffic coming down the wrong way, down this one-way street confronts a very unpleasant blind 110 degree right hand turn halfway down the wrong way into Station Street.
“This means that there is no line of sight. There is no indication of which cyclists, pedestrians, motorcyclists or cars are about to be encountered, or not, travelling the correct way along Station Street.
“Now add into the mix another 4,000 crossings at the corner of the Market Square and Station Street of those wishing to partake of the culinary delights on offer at the newly opening Greggs.”
Mr Fisher said many of the business owners on St John’s Street are being forced by circumstance to step out in front of vehicles and send them back from the direction they came which was fuelling angry road rage arguments in the streets.
“Personally, I have had drivers mount the pavement to get around the person standing in the road, me, requiring pedestrians to jump out of the way,” said Mr Fisher. “We’ve had drivers with real rage getting out of their vehicles in a threatening manner. That’s happened to me on several occasions, so it’s only a matter of time before we surely come to blows?
“I find it hugely distasteful that the highways department puts me and others in this predicament. If this situation continues unchecked, the likelihood of somebody being knocked down or for somebody acting in society’s best interest, to be assaulted, increases considerably.”
He says that the one-way signage, along with the two “no entry” signs and text on the road, are simply not working and should be made “infinitely more implicit.”
Mr Fisher said that the “potential for jeopardy” has increased considerably because of the re-location of Greggs.
“Quite frankly, if it takes Greggs’s re-location to act as the catalyst for someone at our new Cumberland Council to flag this up as a matter of real concern, then I am happy to be that messenger,” he said.
