Letter: We will need a new way of accessing our town centres

Many people have commented on how pleasant our town centres are now that they aren’t clogged with cars: no noise, vibration or air pollution.

This is great for those who live there but terrible for the businesses on which our towns’ wealth depends – clearly the lockdown will have to end soon if most of these businesses are to survive.

However, it is also clear that Covid-19 isn’t going away in a hurry and, after the main lockdown period ends, we will need to live with social distancing for many months.

This raises the question of how we arrange the public space in our towns to maximise footfall, while allowing a safe degree of social distancing.

It seems clear to me that, given the narrow pavements in most of our town centres, the only way to do this will be to keep cars out of the town centres, particularly during peak shopping periods.

This raises the second question of how people will access the town centres if they are unwilling to use buses or park and ride: some towns such as Shrewsbury have edge of centre car parks and we can anticipate a big increase in the use of cars in the short term because of the absence of safe and convenient options to walk or cycle into our town centres.

This exposes Shropshire Council’s lack of investment over many years in direct and continuous cycling and walking routes. The council needs to urgently review this situation and develop plans that will see us through the coming months of uncertainty.

Mike Streetly, Shrewsbury