It’s good news for pedestrians in Ryde as £700,000 has been secured by the Isle of Wight Council to create a safer and more attractive town centre.
The funding from the Government’s Active Travel Fund will transform Ryde High Street by making it safer and more pedestrian friendly. The project will also create new amenity areas, increase accessibility and emphasise the historic elements of Ryde town centre.
The scheme forms part of the Ryde High Street Heritage Action Zone programme being delivered by a partnership of Ryde Town Council, Isle of Wight Council and Historic England.
The project aims to improve the High Street by rationalising and upgrading street furniture; repaving; enhanced planting; new traffic-calming measures to slow permitted vehicles and enhanced cycle parking.
The plans also include improvements to Town Square and Minghella Square to create more space for activities and events, seating at regular intervals to improve accessibility and outdoor seating and display areas for cafes and shops.
Councillor Phil Jordan, Cabinet member for transport and infrastructure, said:
“We’re delighted to have received this funding, which will help us to improve a key area of Ryde. This project centres on making the High Street a safer place for pedestrians while at the same time improving the quality and design of the public realm.
“Visually, it will be clear this will be a pedestrian zone with a gateway feature at the northern end and a controlled prevention and prohibition of vehicles in place along the length of the High Street. This scheme will enable full use and enjoyment of the pedestrian zone of the High Street which is currently compromised by the way vehicle access is managed.”
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Cllr Karen Lucioni, Cabinet member for community safety, said:
“People’s safety is our first priority. These improvements have been designed to address the concerns raised by our residents over many years concerning the safety and wellbeing of pedestrians in the High Street.”
The scheme extends from the entrance to the High Street from Garfield Road in the North to the junction with Star Street in the South. Linking with the investment in the new interchange and pier on the seafront, it will continue the regeneration of Ryde, promoting healthy, greener travel through the whole town.
This is a priority of the Ryde Place Plan which guides partnership working with local stakeholders to deliver sustainable regeneration and demonstrates to potential funders there is a shared vision for change.
Councillor Julie Jones-Evans, Cabinet member for regeneration, said:
“This active travel award shows how the place planning approach taken by the Council, working alongside partners, can bring many funding streams to realise a place’s vision, building on previous grants from Historic England and Arts Council for Ryde. Well done to all involved.”
The bid was supported by the Island’s MP, Bob Seely, who added:
“I am delighted we have been successful in securing yet more investment into Ryde. This is another major win for the town.
“Coming alongside the multi-million-pound improvement works to both Ryde Interchange and the pier, plus the £2million DepARTment project for the former Elizabeth Pack department store, Ryde is successfully attracting major investment throughout the town making it a greener and more vibrant place for residents and visitors.”
The paving in Ryde High Street was last replaced in full in 1993. No wonder it is so bad now. Hoping for improvement
Plenty of places like 5x bigger population-wise Perugia where parts of paving in narrow streets haven’t been replaced since medieval times and still work fine. Time alone can’t be a reason.
Heck, plenty of perfectly walkable aqueducts in rural Spain or Italy that haven’t been touched since the fall of the Roman Empire, lol.
As long as Ryde council doesn’t make the same the mistake council across the land have made by reducing car parking places along the high street. Which reduces foot fall and shops in the high street suffer less customers. And unfortunately go out of business. A very fine balance needs to be drawn here by the council. £700.000 is a nice amount cash. Spend it well and make improvements for all users.
This! The pedestrianised part of Ryde is the worst bit! The top bit is so much better!
Oh please not more public sector ‘improvements’ – the day a civil service bureaucrat does anything that actually benefits the citizens forced to fund them will be the greatest miracle of the last millennia – we all know it will just be used for additional social engineering to meet ‘net zero’ targets or to make something more ‘inclusive’ which will of course mean more misery and inconvenience for the majority of taxpayers
At least the drug dealers will have new pavements to deal on.
The corner of West Hill Road and Lind Street should be turned into a huge multi storey car park and free to use for up to 4 hours, that way you free up space along the high streets roads whilst still maintaining parking in Ryde town itself. Mark my words it won’t be long before Union Street is pedestrianised and St. Thomas Street becoming one way down wards
I don’t go to Ryde anymore. If they want my ‘grey pound’ it’s a sorry state of my age that I occasionally need a public lavatory.
It used to be fine, one at the foot of the pier (now removed), another in the central car park (replaced by one in the Gateway/CoOp store, now removed) and a third at the top of St Johns Hill (permanently locked for fear of Legionnaires disease) leaving only Appley Beach, a long way from the town if you can find a parking space.
Messrs Jordan and Lilley can try and make it their version of ‘pretty’ but shopper friendly it isn’t.
I don’t go to Ryde as it’s a dump. Pitifully short of any decent shops, lacking any vibrancy or attractions. Why bother spending money on polishing a t*rd?
I wonder if the residents of Ryde will have a say in how scheme will look- a choice of different layouts etc..or will it be another case of this is the layout like it or lump it
perhaps they can outlaw charity beggars, shaking their tins outside sainsburys and morssisons daily – fed up with seeing them there most days and perhaps they can get rid of the noisy, buskers that are just using a beat box opposite co op.
and whilst on the subject, they can demand that wight fibre put the pavements back the way they were, instead of just leaving them with a long tarmac stain, where neat paving used to be.
Wight fibre just make a total mess they took out brick paving down union street and replaced it with tarmac how they get away with it is beyond me .Good news for ryde though any improvement is good
People’s safety is our priority, so what are you going to do, put curfews on all the smack rats and drunks? and how does traffic get to Newport if it can’t use John Street, use other roads that will cause gridlocks? Another ass over head decision from our clever council who can’t work out the unforeseen problems that will be caused
just another pointless idea from the cretins running the council, next right idea will be declaring the Island a ULEZ and robbing all drivers, council officers of course will be exempt, with all this wonderful seating how will fire appliances and ambulances get up to any incidents in the High Street.