I HEARTILY welcome the proposed closure of Lendal Bridge to private traffic in footstreet hours.

Buses, taxis, bikes and walkers will still be allowed. Less traffic makes York even more beautiful, cleaner and safer. Raising the quality of the public realm is especially important around the station, the Minster and cultural quarter. It improves York’s character and attracts people and so businesses will profit.

Everyone knows that letting drivers take their own car anywhere at anytime is not viable in a historic city.

Closing roads does not inevitably cause congestion, but can even relieve it as some car journeys are shifted to more sustainable, less congesting modes. Around 12 per cent of traffic disappears.

This isn’t only for tourists, but essential for locals too.

St Leonard’s Place has dangerously high nitrous oxide pollution. Road closures make our city healthier.

We can all be proud that York is leading the way on transport with wide footstreets, extended footstreet hours, a partial bridge closure, wide 20mph limits and 10mph in footstreets when vehicles are allowed.

Coun Anna Semlyen, Labour, Dringhouses and Woodthorpe.

 

•I AM concerned to note that a political party’s petition to keep Lendal Bridge open has been hosted on the council website.

This should surely have been placed on that party’s own website, or if it remains where it is, to be accompanied by a second petition for the experimental closure to proceed.

In Exeter, private cars are not permitted on certain key streets during the daytime, leaving a transport corridor which uses road space far more efficiently and with improved air quality.

Perhaps this should also be York’s vision for Lendal Bridge.

Paul Hepworth, Windmill Rise, York.