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| Tarrant Street Arundel, possible Pedestrian friendly area? |
I am writing this article in the run up to the referendum on
the Arundel Neighbourhood plan, hopefully the referendum gave a strong yes vote
and the town has again established itself as being a the forefront of other
communities in leading the way.
The Neighbourhood plan will dovetail into Arun’s local plan
and will be a comprehensive master-plan for the town’s development, detailing
economic, housing, planning and community development.
I have heard that
the Nat West branch in Arundel (part of the RBS group) is cutting its hours to
be virtually a part time branch. I suppose this is inevitable in the Internet
age, but I have never understood why the big banks never got together to share
branches and cut costs, even joining with Royal Mail, you could have banking
centres with branded bank teller windows and shared utilities.
But with many things in our town, if we don’t use it we will
lose it so there is a need for us to support local business, but I also think
there are opportunities for business’s to join together and create delivery
networks to compete with the large Internet offerings from the
supermarkets. But in many ways as I have
stated before I believe Arundel is in the post retail stage of development and
well placed to take advantage of the leisure shopper looking for a destination
experience rather than just doing essential shopping.
I have been told that the two Arundel 20mph zones are
progressing and will come about sometime in late 2015, this is something I have
been campaigning for nearly four years, I have heard that similar zones in
other towns have cut road injuries by 23%, I know that all the people won’t go
at 20mph, but if they go at 25mph instead of 35mph then that’s progress and
something to celebrate and will make out streets more civilised and safer.
We also need to move more quickly on the Leisure strategy
recommendations for Arundel and implement them to allow the town to move to a pedestrian
friendly street scene with more alfresco dining opportunities, we have a good
quality of life in Arundel, but we can make it better.
Until next month, Paul Dendle is Arundel Ward & Cabinet Member on
Arun District Council and can be contacted at his email Pauldendle@aol.com www.pauldendle.org
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