Retailers have welcomed a decision to return two-way traffic to Kilkenny’s High Street following a campaign highlighting the one-way system’s adverse effects on city centre businesses.
“It won’t be perfect but it will be better,” Phil Walsh, CEO of Goods department store, told the Advertiser.
A majority of local representatives voted to shelve the contentious scheme at a special meeting last Thursday, with eight councillors voting to reverse the decision, two voting to retain the one-way system and two absent from the vote.
The decision means that High Street will reopen to two-way traffic next Monday, November 8, with the council committed to making a final decision on a traffic plan for High Street before September 2011.
“We are very relieved that it is going back to a two-way system because it has impacted on consumers and we have seen it in terms of talking to our customers,” said Ms Walsh.
“We still want to work with the council to do what is best for the High Street and the city centre. The problem wasn’t the one-way system, it was the bottlenecks it created. There is an awful lot of work to be done.”
With the run up to Christmas a peak time for trading, she said it was important that everything was done to attract people to the city and safeguard local businesses.
“We don’t see it as a victory or a defeat, we are all working for one thing.”
While a recent draft WIT report showed that a large number of consumers were supportive of the one way system, she said it also showed problems with access to car parks and reinforced that a significant number of consumers were avoiding the High Street because of the traffic problems.
“The infrastructure on High Street is not capable of supporting the one-way system and the WIT report bore that out.”
Councillor Paul Cuddihy voted in favour of shelving the one-way system but cast doubt on whether it would counter the problem of dwindling sales for retailers.
He told the Advertiser that traders had ‘kept a cool head’ when the scheme was initially introduced and said the council were looking to resolve traffic choke points before reintroducing the scheme.
“I understand the anxiety of the businesses in High Street who need to get more customers in the door in the lead up to Christmas and I would urge people to shop local where they can get value for their money,” he said.
“But I don’t think that two-way traffic is going to solve the problems of the recession on High Street.
“It is a source of disappointment to me that more traders didn’t open up over the recent bank holiday weekend to take advantage of the huge numbers of visitors to Kilkenny. Certainly, I know the Market Cross shopping centre did a roaring trade and made up for the loss of footfall in September.”
Councillor Seán ÓhArgáin bemoaned the decision to revert to two-way traffic, claiming the council had failed to hold their nerve by abandoning a major part of the scheme just a week in.
He pointed to a Fáilte Ireland report released last week which indicated that visitors to Kilkenny immediately prior to the implementation of the system identified traffic congestion and poor access in the city centre as the major problems.
“I believe that reversing this decision will not save or create one single job nor put a single extra euro in a till in Kilkenny. I believe the opposite to be true,” he said.
“Our efforts as a council should be directed towards making the city centre a more comfortable, attractive and safer place in which to shop.
“I hope that when we return to discuss these issues that what the citizens of the city and the visiting tourists, who are now becoming our lifeline for economic survival, want will come first.”
