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Freeing Guildford Town Centre of Traffic is the Vision for Guildford
Published on: 6 Sep, 2014
Updated on: 6 Sep, 2014
As part of the re-planning of the gyratory system, Bridge Street will become a route for pedestrians, cyclists and buses. This will improve east-west links across the river and enhance links between the station to the town centre.
Getting the traffic out of Guildford’s town centre is central to the vision of Guildford’s future shared by the Guildford Vision Group (GVG) and Allies and Morrison, the firm employed by Guildford Borough Council to develop thinking towards a masterplan for the town.
This was the message given to an audience of nearly 250 people, the largest audience a GVG meeting has attracted to date, at Guildford’s Baptist Centre .
Guildford’s gyratory system will be re-planned to create conventional two-way streets activated by new shop fronts as part of wider redevelopment. This will create attractive streets and spaces for pedestrians and cyclists whilst accommodating the need for traffic to access the town centre.
With the use of artists impressions and maps the audience was shown the impact that ridding cars from the central streets could have. But the audience was carefully reminded that the ideas were still only at the visionary stage.
Although curing Guildford’s traffic problems was not part of Allies & Morrisons brief, GVG maps were shown to demonstrate one idea of taking traffic over the old town bridge to the west of the railway station and then back over the railway line and river via a newly built bridge north of the station.
A new station building and station esplanade will create a new gateway for Guildford and help to improve connections to the town centre and the wider area.
Judging by a show of hands at the end of the meeting the overwhelming majority of the meeting seemed encouraged and less fearful about Guildford’s future while a small number indicated that, having seen the presentation, they were now more concerned.
Introducing the event, GVG member Stewart Morgan said Guildford was a great and prosperous town that was facing some major challenges. There was a shortage of housing and business space and poor transport systems.
He said, “Addressing the problems boldly and creatively could provide solutions of great benefit,” but that, “Over the last 15-20 years… hardly a bean had been spent on infrastructure.”
The replanning of the town centre road network will mean that new riverside spaces can be created in the heart of the town, creating new opportunities for riverside cafés and restaurants as well as apartments overlooking the river.
After Anthony Rifkind, a partner at Allies and Morrisons, showed examples of the company’s claimed successes in other towns including the 2012 Olympic Games site, Coventry and Hereford.
His colleague Steve Walker, director of the architecture and planning practice, said: I would like to start by saying what a fantastic place Guildford is. It is a town brimming with potential, so much ability to do things.”
He posed the question: “How do we switch off Guildford’s gyratory: how do we take out the horrible race track we have in the centre of our historic town?”
Echoing many previous commentators, he said that the riverside was one of the town’s best untapped assets. If the roads could be moved away, he suggested, the river area could be used to create attractive areas to include shops, restaurants, cafés and apartments.
The riverside to the north of the town centre will be opened up as part of a plan to deliver new town centre housing in Walnut Tree Close.
Talking about building style Mr Walker said: “We want to make sure that [new buildings] are integrated with the scale of existing buildings… so that it feels like it belongs here… this is one of the things we take very seriously… we do design very modern buildings but they are very sensitively rooted in the character, scale and building forms that characterise the place within which they are located.”
John Rigg, the chairman of the GVG said: “The idea is to take all the traffic out of the heart of the town… leaving it traffic free for pedestrians buses and service vehicles.”
With at least seven councillors in the audience, Mr Rigg made specific mention of a greatly improved relationship between the borough council and GVG and he thanked them for instructing Allies & Morrison to carry out their consultation work.
Julian Lyon, another GVG and Guildford Society member, who specialises on planning, also commented on the traffic. His remark that things had got: “…so much worse since the Debenhams subway had been filled in,” drew spontaneous applause from most of the audience.
But he added two notes of caution. Firstly, he said that, unlike other towns the construction of a new bypass that would have to cut through green belt and AONB land was unrealistic. And, even if plans are agreed work may not commence for six to ten years.
All images and captions provide by Allies & Morrison©.
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Responses to Freeing Guildford Town Centre of Traffic is the Vision for Guildford
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Bernard Parke
September 6, 2014 at 12:12 pm
Credit should be given to the work and forethought of the personnel responsible for the vision of future Guildford, which must have taken many hours of research and cost a considerable amount of money in its preparation.
However this will take many years to achieve, if it is achieved at all.
In the meantime we have a present problem with traffic which is strangling our town.
If only we could tackle the problem of heavy through traffic now.
One suggestion put forward recently was that of levying a congestion charge on heavy traffic which would encourage the use of alternative routes. If this was possible the revenue from such a charge could be used for the improvements within central Guildford and perhaps help to repair our worn out road system.
Let us hope that this vision does not become just another pipe dream.
Gordon Bridger
September 6, 2014 at 12:14 pm
One of the largest and most constructive public planning meetings I recall attending.
Not only was there praise for GVG, but more remarkably GBC was widely congratulated for initiating the study. Is this a first? Well done GBC.
The thinking behind this study now needs to extend to the Draft Local Plan for the whole borough.
Robert Burch
September 8, 2014 at 8:52 pm
Those who praise Guildford Borough Council for initiating this study should remember that they had to be dragged kicking and screaming by GVG [Guildford Vision Group] to get there, including being willing to take the council to court.
I would urge people to oppose the current Local Plan (this is separate to the Town Centre Vision) to be willing to fight hard for what they believe is right. GVG have demonstrated what can be achieved by standing firm in the face of bullying and ill-thought out plans.
Ngaire Wadman
September 6, 2014 at 4:23 pm
It was indeed a very good meeting. There were many slides, and many very pretty pictures of traffic-free roads.
Unfortunately, I doubt if moving the ‘horrible race track’ of through traffic to the west of the station, then back to Woodbridge Road via two bridges (over rail and river), will be feasible. It would be more sensible to look at adding a ‘double-decker’ through-traffic-only second layer to the A3, making it a double-decker road as far as the Hog’s Back, simply to take more traffic.
Even re-zoning Weyside West as residential would help – develop one unit of terraced, attractive flats with shops/parking below on the current empty site and most of the 50 current landowners along Station Road would seriously consider a straight swap, current property for shiny new flat. And that could snowball, with each successive new block of flats taking up more land and being occupied by current householders, plus others.
Perhaps it’s just as well GBC has just awarded itself a further £27 million to buy property as a good investment. It could start with the Weyside West Bank area, and set the ball rolling for the Guildford Vision Group’s pretty pictures being made reality.
Yvonka Wilkinson
September 6, 2014 at 6:21 pm
An inspirational presentation of what, and most surely can be, achieved for Guildford.
Mary Bedforth
September 7, 2014 at 9:45 am
So many pretty pictures and so much pie in the sky.
The cost? Who is paying?
Terry Stevenson
September 8, 2014 at 11:53 pm
Whilst I applaud GVG’s commitment, I remain unconvinced that the primary source of Guildford’s traffic woes are those passing through the town to reach distant destinations, or those wishing to avoid issues on the A3.
Therefore, even if those passing through were diverted away from the gyratory by the hugely expensive tunnelling of the A3, as suggested by some, or the rather more limited ‘tinkering about’ closer to the town centre suggested, I suspect the impact of doing either, or both, would be negligible, and any short-term benefit would soon be swallowed up by the growth in vehicle usage.
Resolving the latter is the key.
Bibhas Neogi
September 12, 2014 at 6:45 am
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