HAVING visited the Silk Mill exhibition and discussed the proposals with an officer of Cheshire East Council, I am dismayed that King Street will remain as a through road for traffic and that some footway widths will remain very sub-standard. For example, at one location the proposed footway width will remain at 0.66m, exactly as it is now. This is in breach of the council’s legal obligation to maintain access for disabled people in wheelchairs and would place the council at risk of being sued if there were to be an accident attributable to the sub-standard width, especially when this has been brought to the council’s attention in advance.

Through traffic will continue very much as it does at the present time — so although the proposal is being sold to the public as pedestrian priority scheme, it is nothing of the sort and drivers will continue to use it as a through route exactly as they do now. This is a particular problem in the morning peak period, when drivers use King Street as a rat run in preference to Toft Road (A50) to gain access to Mereheath Lane and then to the motorway network.

The use of large York stone paving flags is completely inappropriate because vehicles will overrun and crack them in a matter of a few months. Smaller concrete blocks would be much more durable, easier to reinstate when the utilities dig them up and could be made to look attractive.

Finally, and this is inexcusable, I am informed by the council officer that there are no proposals to evaluate the effectiveness of the scheme following its completion. It is important to do this from a road-safety perspective and to obtain views of the public and business community when they have experienced using it over a period of several months.

Adrian Dean Birch Grove