THE chairman of Ledbury Town Council, Cllr Nina Shields, says last week's meeting, to discuss ideas to alter the layout of the town centre, was a "useful" exercise in public consultation.

Cllr Shields said: “We had a very useful meeting on this consultation document. It gave councillors, traders and residents the opportunity to have their say on a range of options for the town’s future.”

The council meeting decided to stress the importance of several key issues, which included all footpaths and cycle ways and then disabled access in key areas of the town, and the need for extra car parking in the town.

Ledbury has one of the lowest ratios of parking spaces per head of population of any town in Herefordshire.

The town council will now be asking Herefordshire Council's contractor, Balfour Beatty to review its ideas on altering parking in the High Street.

Cllr Shields said: "If there are to be any changes to the area they need to take account of the needs of the traders and residents together with the way the space is used for town events."

Key ideas in the Balfour Beatty review include making Bye Street one-way, from east to west, with a contra-flow for cycles; creating a paved square around the Market House, which would entail the loss of car-parking space and moving the bus stop; and using different colours of road surface "to differentiate carriageway and footway areas", although the square could also incorporate a raised table area.

There could also be paved raised crossings along the Homend and High Street; the Homend bays could be marked out differently "to reduce the expanse of the carriageway" and to give "a visual narrowing of the carriageway".

The proposed creation of a town square by the Market House also has implications for the future location of Ledbury’s charter market, which comes to the town every Tuesday and Saturday.

The town council is also keen to see "improvement of access to the station including access to both platforms".

And the town council also thought the proposal to make Bye Street one way "would have a very detrimental effect on traffic flow in the town".

Cllr Shields said: “It would be very useful for all concerned if Balfour Beatty now gave some idea of timescales.

"As a council we need to know approximately by when they envisage finalising any planned changes and an outline of the proposed programme of consultation. In addition, we need to know what contribution, financial or otherwise, we would be expected to make to any project that was finally agreed."