Devon County Council’s Exeter Highways and Traffic Orders Committee has reversed its decision to introduce bus lane changes in Cowick Street.
The changes were to include an extension to bus lane operating times and loading time variations along a stretch of Cowick Street in the heart of St Thomas.
The committee approved the scheme in January after an informal consultation on the changes held the previous October produced just seventeen responses.
It also approved the Traffic Regulation Orders consultation required to formalise the changes.
This second consultation produced 258 objections and a public petition with 501 signatures that opposed the changes. Objections included potential impacts on local businesses and the possibility that an increase in Cowick Street traffic speeds would make it less safe.
Exeter Western bus corridor rejected Cowick Street scheme. Image: Devon County Council.
The rejected scheme was among several incremental changes planned as part of the Devon Bus Services Improvement Plan adopted by the county council in July 2022 then updated four months later.
The plan identifies six bus corridors in Exeter, five of which run from the city centre to its outskirts along radial routes and one along Barrack Road between Topsham Road and Heavitree Road.
Works to provide a bus gate on New North Road alongside John Lewis, itself a reversal of a previous county council decision to make this section of street one way, have recently been completed on the plan’s “northern corridor”.
Other Bus Services Improvement Plan schemes are at different stages of development. The county council is convening a special meeting of Exeter Highways and Traffic Orders Committee on 12 November to consider its central and eastern corridor components.
