Street works

What a relief to see Bell Street, one of the principal roads into the town centre at Romsey re-open again.

It has been closed for six months while road reconstruction intended to modernise and improve the access to the Hampshire market town have been undertaken. The main change has been to make the shopping street more friendly to pedestrians, doing away with narrow pavements and placing the road and pavements on the same level. A similar scheme on the town’s nearby Church Street has now been in place for some months.

Not that the work has finished yet. The next proposed stage is a controversial plan to introduce the same concept into the town’s Market Square.

If it improves the dangerously sloping and uneven pavements in the square the next phase cannot start too soon.

But somehow I still have a nagging feeling that when roadways and pavements are at the same level with a mix of pedestrians and vehicles, that safety is in danger of being compromised.