Forum website, South Gate Gateway.
Having studied the proposals contained in VISION KING’S LYNN the forum is asking for a reconsideration of the proposals for the South Gate area, emphasising the need to address the volume of traffic and to consider park and ride.
This is the letter sent to Duncan Hall, Assistant Director of Regeneration, Housing and Place.
A number of our constituents have voiced their concerns about the scheme as it affects the portion surrounding the South Gate, its road system and London Road, in effect the southern entrance to the town, South Gate Gateway.
The treatment of this area, as proposed, has come as a great disappointment, for what the town deserves and the local authority should be addressing, is to get traffic out of town rather than to create a race-track to get it through as expeditiously as possible. Indeed, the very fact that the scheme requires the partial closure of the South Gate and the re-routing of vehicles is an acknowledgement of the parlous state that has been allowed to pertain. The pollution rate along London Road is so great that it has, for at least the past twenty years, become an undesirable place to live, which is a great sadness when one considers that during the nineteenth century and the first quarter of the twentieth it was considered to be the street on which to reside; King’s Lynn’s equivalent of London’s Park Lane. Now all of that has gone. The majority of the buildings look dishevelled, gardens have been given over to hard standing for cars and their fine railings removed, a goodly number of the formerly elegant houses have become houses of multiple occupation (HMO), their landlords apparently unwilling to keep them in prime condition.
All of this could be dealt with if only the borough council would address the matter of commercial vehicles and private motor cars using the town with a view to eliminating them as far as is possible. What is required is a complete re-think of the town, the lorry and the car. By 2025 it is anticipated that the majority of petrol and diesel-powered motor vehicles will have been replaced by electric models, illustrated by a mere glance at the many advertisements that pepper every television programme. The government is intent upon the encouragement of walking and cycling, if only to cut the pollution, which is damaging the health of so many, and there is every expectation that public transport will be improved.
How dated and out-moded the ‘South Gate Gateway’ – if enacted as proposed – will then appear and King’s Lynn will once again be struggling in an attempt to catch-up up with other towns – instead it could be well ahead of the rest to its great benefit.
By all means promote the South Gate as Lynn’s grand entrance, while the revivification of the long-abandoned South Gate Park and the refurbishment of the elegant – but neglected – Art Deco Ford garage could make it a most impressive entry.
The ward forum suggests that an even better way of seeking financial assistance from Heritage England to conserve and protect the South Gate would be to use the funding to invest in Park & Ride, with such facilities at the northern and southern ends of the town. An efficient shuttle bus service – such as exists in Cambridge – would take away the need for shoppers and tourists to drive into town.
Greater attention must be paid to the commercial traffic, which continues to use London Road as its approach despite the 7.5 tonne ban which was introduced at least a decade ago, but which is rarely enforced. This traffic must be taken out of London Road as well as Station Road and Blackfriars Road immediately, there are the powers to do so and to insist that the northern bypass be used instead – as was the original plan of the ban. It would be simple enough to enforce by installing cameras at South Gate and fining the owners of the commercial vehicles whenever they travel through the town.
It is far from unusual to see large articulated lorries waiting their chance to skirt the South Gate into the on-coming lane simply because they are too large to go through it. These huge lorries were not tailored for the narrow streets of a medieval town, and neither is satellite navigation equipment geared up to repeat the width of a road. The number of large lorries, for example, reversing back down Church Street unable to negotiate the sharp turn into St James Street is legion.
Regrettably the majority of those who plan traffic ‘flow’ – so called – are themselves drivers and, as such, are unable to see the reverse arguments from the point of the pedestrian, for it is the latter who see and witness the damage being done to our towns by the internal combustion engine. Towns, particularly ancient ones such as King’s Lynn, were built for the pedestrian and modest quantities of essential traffic. Today’s vehicles are incompatible to this scenario, which is why Park & Ride is urgently required so that King’s Lynn can reclaim its calm and become a heritage town of great interest and beauty.
There is a better way of treating London Road and giving due obeisance to the historic South Gate. If the proposals could be revisited and ‘heritage’ be given the driving arm, then a better solution would arise than merely making London Road a race track at the expense of the South Gate and South Gate Park; the latter, incidentally, is in fact, the George V Memorial Gardens, paid for from the national George V Memorial Fund and established in 1936.
The ward forum and its constituents considered the alternative vision, which has been presented by Simon Thurley, a ward resident. Overwhelmingly this has found favour and is much preferred to the proposal contained in the Vision document.
We strongly urge that, in addition to a re-appraisal of the Gateway, this proposal is taken into account.