York’s city centre’s pedestrian streets could be made permanent

Disability campaigners have hit out at York City Council following discussions that could see a number of the city centre’s streets permanently closed to vehicles.

Currently, several of York’s central streets have been pedestrianised to allow for social distancing as part of the city’s efforts to combat the coronavirus with the potential to keep them traffic free until September 2021. Other discussions have seen councillors debate whether to keep the city centre as pedestrianised as possible by permanently closing some of the streets previously used by vehicles. Disability campaigners have raised concerns that by doing this, it would shut disabled residents out of their own city.

City of York Council have said it is continuing to work with disability groups to find a solution by creating more blue badge bays, but campaigners say that the changes do not go far enough and that disabled people will struggle to visit the city centre if key streets remain closed to vehicles.

Speaking about the pedestrianisation of the city centre, Cllr Andy D’Agorne told reporters: “We responded to government guidance in June to support reopening of businesses and advised blue badge holders that we would consult widely on longer term arrangement. The extensive engagement which followed has shown us that there is a difficult balance to find. While the benefits of the foot streets are felt by many disabled residents and businesses, we understand the negative impact on others.

“We are looking for solutions that offer spaces for businesses to recover, protecting jobs with improved and more varied options for blue badge parking.”

The council has outlined plans to help disabled residents and visitors by creating four more disabled bays at Boothram Row car park, and advertising existing spaces elsewhere in the city, as well as allowing disabled people to cycle on pedestrian streets and creating an app with information about York’s disabled facilities. However, many campaigners feel that this doesn’t go far enough.

Have you experienced difficulty with pedestrianised streets? Let us know on Facebook and Twitter.