PLANNING and Environment’s £25,000 plans to revitalise Conway Street have been amended in response to public feedback.

Following approval by Environment Minister Freddie Cohen and the St Helier urban taskforce, work will start this month.

The aim is to make Conway Street safer for pedestrians and more accessible for businesses and the disabled.

It will also smarten up one of the main routes from the waterfront into town.

Senator Cohen said that following consultation with the public and retailers, it had been decided to drop a proposed lighting element of the scheme, resulting in a saving of more than ten per cent of the total value of the project.

However, he added, the idea for a feature had not been scrapped and it was hoped to finance it through private sponsorship.

The first phase of the work will involve widening the pavement on the western side of the street.

Work will then halt in May and resume in September to comply with working restrictions in town during the summer.

The entire scheme – which includes widening of pavements on both sides, new junctions to calm traffic, more pedestrian crossings and improved disabled access and unloading facilities for businesses – is due to be finished by the end of November.

The news that the scheme will go ahead has been welcomed by the chairman of the urban taskforce, St Helier Constable Simon Crowcroft.

He said: ‘The improvement is long overdue.

I have heard from businesses in the street which have been suffering operationally from the narrowness of the pavements and the inability of potential customers to look in shop windows, as well as from tourists who find this gateway to the town centre difficult to use.’