THESE lockdown webinars are great. You don’t even have to get off your sofa to learn new stuff.
On Saturday I logged in to a panel talking about the future of our High Street and city centre shops.
There was independent retailer Susi Mason from Casa Fina, a teenage market trader called Becca, former architect and mayor of Bristol George Ferguson – an authority on urban regeneration - and Jonathan Meades, who writes and makes films about all sorts of stuff including architecture and strikes me as an all-round stirrer.
They gave us so much to think about, but pedestrianisation was one thing I’d like to focus on, since more of it is proposed by the city council.
It isn’t necessarily the best answer for Salisbury, they suggested. The city centre is a tight fit. Where would people park? The park and ride sites are “way out”, and this is “a place where people are very car-dependent”.
To expect everyone to walk and cycle shows “a degree of Utopianism”, especially with so many old people living here.
A better answer would be to “tame the streets”, lowering the speed limit to 10mph, and having a car-free day every Sunday.
The problem about that, everyone agreed, was the frustrating bureaucracy involved in making traffic orders, etc. It made it so hard to experiment and try out new ideas to liven the place up.
Other suggestions: Let talented local makers sell their wares in the High Street; have more street food; turn the Odeon (if we get a new multiplex at the Maltings) into an artisan market with food stalls; let shops spill out onto the pavements to sell their wares.
Can you imagine the fun Health & Safety will have with that one?
Wiltshire Creative organised this event as part of the Salisbury 2020 Big Weekend. Congratulations. I’ll try to cover more of it another day.
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