A great place to be

Durham City is a great place to be, and we want to protect it and improve it.

Increased car usage has been steadily damaging the quality of life in Durham over several decades. We believe that the time has come to reverse this trend. We support the development of a Sustainable Transport System for Durham City to help create a safer, cleaner, and healthier City.

Our vision is of a Durham City in which car use is kept to a minimum, public transport is vastly improved, and there is a high quality network of walking priority and cycling priority routes. Reducing the level of traffic and parking can provide huge benefits, improving the quality of life in the City centre and in residential neighbourhoods.

Space will be created to allow more pedestrianisation of the centre. Residential areas could become home zones, where vehicles are put in their place and the streets are meant as living space not parking space.

Everyone’s a winner

Our vision will deliver clear benefits to all sections of the community:

Businesses as well as residents

Children as well as adults

Drivers as well as pedestrians

Disabled people as well as non-disabled people

We all have an interest in improving the quality of our public spaces. We can all reap huge benefits by recognising that if we curtail our rights when we are behind the wheel of a car we can gain much more freedom for ourselves and others for the times when we are not driving.

Our vision is truly sustainable in that it will produce benefits to the local economy, to the community, and to the environment. Durham City will become an even greater place to be. More people will want to visit, to study, to worship, to work. The local economy will thrive.

Residential neighbourhoods will become much more attractive to families with children as they become safer, more spacious and less polluted.

The impact of traffic on the historic city centre will be minimised, our air will be cleaner and our streets safer. We will contribute toward reducing greenhouse gases.

Just do it!

Much of our vision is already contained in the Local Transport Plan (Durham City Package). This is supposed to fully implemented by 2006. To our dismay we have found the implementation of this plan to be beset by delays and an over-cautious approach.

The Plan was put together following extensive consultation and consultants’ reports over several years. Many ordinary residents were involved. We suspect that some local politicians, public servants, and businesses have become lukewarm toward the Plan.

Instead of a progressive programme of action we now have a painfully slow process that has alienated many residents. As regards parking in residential areas, for example, plans have been put forward that fall well short of residents’ expectations and no programme of further future improvements has been offered.

We call upon all sections of the community to grasp the opportunity to improve the quality of life in Durham City. Our leaders need to show the leadership and courage needed for us to make rapid progress toward developing the Sustainable Transport System that we will all benefit from.