THOSE who trade or reside in the environs of Cheapside were right to voice concerns about the makeover of the area, but for the wrong reasons.

The facelift of this neglected and congested western gateway to the town does not come cheap, so the public are right to question whether the £400,000 from the fiscal stimulus fund is being wisely spent.

The £44 million fund may be designed to create and safeguard jobs during the recession, but that does not mean it should be spent willy-nilly, simply to keep the workforce from twiddling its thumbs.

The objections, which have been taken on board, were against a one-way system in a package of otherwise generally acceptable urban improvements to keep traffic flowing, make life easier for pedestrians and introduce some much-needed colour to a drab streetscape.

No matter how more attractive Cheapside may eventually look, it will still suffer from the high volumes of traffic which, in a constant daily stream, cut the area in two.

Just for a change, why can’t traffic engineers, town managers and the Elf ‘n’ Safety killjoys step outside their comfort zones and instead of strictly segregating traffic, pedestrians and cyclists from each other, allow them to mingle freely at will?

It’s high time those who design our urban domain went Dutch and ditched this Island’s love affair with the combustion engine.

The problem with traffic engineering is not that it exists to keep people and goods moving efficiently and safely, but how it achieves those ends.

Our problem is that we follow the standard practice of the UK, where, with rare exceptions, the engineers and urban planners rely on immobile infrastructure to segregate roads users and residents.

This has resulted in an unsightly collection of signs, poles, lights, bollards, road humps and railings of all shapes, sizes, designs and colours, which can only be described as hideous and unsightly clutter, blighting not just the built environment, but also country lanes.

• Read the full column in today’s JEP