The Traffic Calming Revolution That Will Save Your Historic Town Centre Let's cut to the chase here: if you're responsible for a historic town or city centre, you're probably tearing your hair out. You need paving that looks right for the place. That fits the character. That respects the centuries of history that underpin the streets - but also needs to survive the crushing weight of modern traffic on streets designed for horse-drawn carts. For years, the only game in town was traditional granite cobble setts. And yes, they look amazing. They're the kind of thing that makes conservation officers weep with joy, and tourists whip out their cameras. But installing them ? Nightmare. We're talking weeks. Or months. Road closures, diversions, local business shut due to lack of customers, residents confined to their homes and a deluge of complaints to the council - it's unsustainable, it's unfair and it's no longer necessary.
The Old Way Just Isn't Working Let me paint a picture for you - you've got a historic high street lined with independent shops and characterful buildings that the whole community relies on for foot traffic. And to top it all off, the road surface looks awful. You want to do it properly and get the old surface resurfaced. But you know what will look right in this historic setting : granite setts. So you instruct the contractors to rip up the old road, dig up the sub-base and then lay down a new layer of setts. And then... weeks go by. The shops are empty, the complaints keep piling up, the local paper is full of headlines about another "council cock-up" and you're stuck in the middle trying to justify the fact that doing the right thing is also - you guessed it - the most disruptive thing imaginable. This is the old way - and it's well and truly broken. It's broken because our historic streets can do so much better than some bland, ugly alternative. It's broken because no local business can survive months of closure. And it's broken because residents have had enough of being treated like an afterthought.
New Thinking, New Solutions