A survey has been launched to gather views on the Safe Zones in four Ceredigion towns.
Ceredigion County Council has aimed to create safe, inviting towns for people to come shopping and to enjoy, whilst enabling shops, cafés and restaurants to reopen and enabling people to maintain social distancing requirements. Safe zones were introduced in Aberaeron, Aberystwyth, Cardigan and New Quay.
Some roads have been closed to traffic and visitors have been asked to make use of the free car parking. The safe zones are operational from 11am-6pm daily, with some exceptions in order to create the space for people to use town centres safely.
The road closures required to facilitate the creation of safe zones were introduced for a period of up to 21 days with an option to extend for a further 21 days. The first period of 21 days comes to an end at Midnight on Sunday, 02 August 2020. The Council intend to introduce a second 21-day period of street closures to enable the safe zones to be in place until Midnight, 23 August 2020.
Throughout this period, the Council will continue to work with businesses and listen to users to seek ways of improving the implementation of the safe zones for users and businesses. Public Health will remain the key driver for our decisions in this period.
Based on the continued review of all relevant data, including public health, actual and projected visitor numbers, it is intended to apply for a new traffic order. This will enable road closures to be implemented for an 18-month period from the 24 August 2020. However, the view is that the safe zones will need to be in place until mid-to-late October.
The Council are keen to hear views of residents, businesses and visitors as the implementation of the safe zones continues. The views will be considered as the Council reviews the operation of the safe zones during the coming weeks.
Have your say by 10 August 2020: Safe Zones Consultation
A wider engagement and consultation exercise will be launched during the Autumn. This will review the impact of the safe zones and consider views about introducing safe zones in towns in the future.
31/07/2020