Should we be installing expensive street art and structures if we can’t afford to keep maintaining them?
We tend to see this a lot in local authorities.
The best example of this is in Church Street in Blackburn town centre. It is a wonderful part of the town but appears to have never picked up since we decided to close it to traffic.
The stretch was renovated at great cost two decades ago. At the time it looked really good. I like the ‘fountains’, and I like how the street looked…when it was new.
The pavilions renovation was a good idea and there are some good businesses along there.
But it is hard to keep it looking good, and while the pavilions have stood the test of time everything else appears to be looking pretty dated and worn.
The problem is, once the cobbles started getting loose we decided early on it was too expensive to replace them.
So, in patches we now have tarmac. It is far cheaper to install and it is what we do when we run out of money. To be honest I would probably do the same.
Then, having gone down the route of pedestrianisation, it is very difficult to reopen the road.
To do so will mean having to install a new surface that will not get damaged by the traffic.
It would mean having some sort of barrier to protect people coming out of the market. Not impossible I suppose.
Church Street links one side of the town to the other and it still puzzles me why if I am heading past the Lloyds Bank I must drive down Darwen Street and around Railway Road to get to Morrisons and towards Eanam.
Making it one way would be such a major boost for the town centre. Simple changes with maximum effects.
Small towns need good traffic link-ups. It matters. No matter how much we would like to think otherwise.
I do like regeneration projects but sometimes I do sense they are not thought through past the first 10 years.
In this case, I think all the fanfare lasted less than five years before we realised we may well have made an error.
The best example is Sudell Cross. Reopen a road and see what happens.
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