A joint Devon County Council and Exeter City Council active travel scheme in the centre of Newtown has been approved after four rounds of public consultation that took place over four years.
Funded by Sport England as part of the city council Live & Move programme, the £450,000 scheme aims to make it “easier and safer for people to walk, wheel and cycle around and through Newtown”.
It includes the closure of part of Russell Street, changes to Triangle car park and the removal and addition of various parking spaces in Clifton Road, Belmont Road and Clifton Hill.
There will also be alterations including the introduction of a contraflow cycle lane in Clifton Hill and minor changes to signage and foliage will be made in Western Way opposite the junction with Summerland Street.
Newtown scheme map. Image: Exeter City Council.
Cyclists will be permitted to travel down Clifton Hill from its junction with Polsloe Road using a part-painted contraflow lane while existing one-way uphill traffic continues.
A passing place near the crest of the hill is to be created by reconfiguring two parking spaces.
Travelling westwards through the scheme, a 30 metre car parking bay will be added near the entrance to Belmont Park following the removal of the pedestrian traffic island, with pavements on the corner of Clifton Road extended to reduce the width of the junction mouth.
In Clifton Road itself several car parking spaces opposite the convenience store will be replaced with extended green space and a new pavement.
Parallel roadside parking spaces and a pair of pedestrian build-outs will also be added.
Clifton Road changes plan. Image: Devon County Council.
Triangle car park at the far end of Clifton Road will be divided into two sections, each with its own entrance and exit, to enable the conversion of the existing shared path which crosses it to separate cycle and pedestrian paths.
Benches will be added to a new green strip in the southern half of the car park alongside the cyclepath.
The city council says that the net loss of 25 chargeable spaces in Triangle car park will amount to £69,000 in foregone annual parking income, but adds that the improvements “may actually make the car park more attractive to customers”.
The short spur of Russell Street which currently connects Heavitree Road with the edge of Triangle car park will be closed to traffic. The roadway will be replaced by another green space strip with benches and the existing car parking spaces converted to a cycle lane alongside the pavement.
Pedestrians and cyclists will then join a shared path before being able to cross Heavitree Road and continue into Denmark Road by using the existing pelican crossing.
Signage will also be improved and vegetation cut back beside the existing pedestrian and cycle paths alongside Belmont Chapel in Western Way beyond the northern end of Triangle car park.
Triangle car park changes plan. Image: Devon County Council.
Public consultation for the scheme began with an online survey in April 2021 which invited feedback on “various aspects of life in Newtown” including public transport, recreation, green spaces and car parking. It received 84 responses.
Scheme proposals were then presented at meetings with “stakeholders” in 2023, following which the city council conducted a formal ten-week consultation between December last year and February. 1,800 letters were sent to local residents and four in-person sessions were held at St Matthews Hall.
The consultation yielded 57 comments of which 58% were positive, 21% negative and the remainder “related to existing concerns”.
Devon County Council then advertised the traffic regulation orders required to complete the changes in April. These prompted 212 responses, around 80% of which were supportive.
Objections included concerns about safety and visibility at the entrance to Belmont Park because of the new adjacent parking spaces and in Clifton Hill because of the narrow roadway.
Other respondents expressed a view summarised by the county council as “similar schemes have caused division in the city and have been a waste of time and money”.
Russell Street changes plan. Image: Devon County Council.
Exeter Highways and Traffic Orders Committee, meeting last week for the first time since Devon County Council elections were held in May, approved the scheme unanimously.
It followed Exeter City Council approval of the changes in Triangle car park – the only part of the scheme for which it has responsibility – the previous week.
The County Hall committee welcomed several new members including newly-elected county councillor Neil Stevens, who said he was concerned about the low public consultation response levels. A county highways officer nevertheless said they were typical for a consultation of this size.
Duncan Wood, returning to the committee as one of four city council representatives, said that the scheme was the opposite of the “rushed Heavitree & Whipton LTN” and had been “driven by the community”.
Speaking from the public gallery, Exeter Cycling Campaign chair James Diamond called the proposals “really exciting” and urged the committee to “listen to the community”.
Also speaking from the public gallery, Exeter city councillor Lucy Haigh asked what mechanisms were in place to prevent collisions between cyclists and pedestrians where their segregated routes converge on the shared path before the Heavitree Road pelican crossing.
She said that the plans “showed inconsistency in the use of segregation and shared space”, which she said the RNIB “strongly opposes when designing for our blind residents”.
Pointing out that the RNIB had not been consulted on the scheme, despite Department for Transport guidance, she requested that it and Guide Dogs for the Blind be asked to “evaluate and co-produce” final detailed scheme designs.
County highways officers confirmed that “further work was needed” to finalise the scheme, including consultation with Inclusive Exeter, and told the committee that they would find out why the RNIB had not been invited to participate.
