Crouch Street in the future?

Crouch Street's in the news, and people are talking about what sort of place it should be. It's one of my favourite streets, with a fantastic mixture of small and medium sized shops and businesses. At one end it starts with the award winning Adnams pub, the "Hospital Arms", and the excellent "Curry India" restaurant, and it ends with another pub, "The Bull", and many other places to eat. And in between, many other businesses worth looking at and supporting.

It's definitely an important walking street, and all life can be seen there. At different times of the day there are different crowds. The snap above was taken around half past three, and there are swarms of school children excitedly meeting up and chatting together. It's something that most adults don't experience any more, with our fragmented and complex lifestyles. Wouldn't it be cool if we could all have a fifteen minute break from our routine, and have a chat with our mates on the street corner?

So what's the future for Crouch Street? Let's have a little look back first. This was the main road into Colchester from London before Cymbeline Way was built in the 1930s. Southway didn't come along until around 1970. When the car first became more affordable in the 1960s Crouch Street became very congested and unpleasant. I can remember Wellesley Road being a through road connecting to Crouch Street, and the east part of Crouch Street to Head Street being log-jammed with cars and buses.

In the early seventies Balkerne Hill became a dual carriageway, and Crouch Street was severed in the middle, with only an underpass for pedestrians. Across the country, the thinking at the time was that people would drive to town centres, and park at multi-storey car parks on the (never completed) ring roads. Walking for transport was considered by much of the population, and the authorities, to be a thing of the past. But the people of Colchester who still wanted to walk along Crouch Street were not happy with being forced underground, so the current (poor standard) signal crossing was retro-fitted to the main road.

Times have changed, and we are looking again at the design of the public realm. Hopefully the importance of walking will be given priority, as customers on foot are very important to the businesses at Crouch Street. I contacted Colchester Borough Council recently, and they expect that some town centre proposals will be put forward for discussion this spring. I look forward to Crouch Street becoming an even better street, and hope that some of the less attractive aspects of the street scene can be improved. Make sure your voice is heard when the ideas are made public.