The city council has completed a consultation on ideas to improve the busy shopping street in Belgrave.
Under the suggested changes traffic lights could be removed from the road and drivers encouraged to give way to pedestrians instead.
The council could become a ‘shared space’ for cars, bikes and people. That could also making lanes narrower for vehicles and redesigning the road to get motorists to slow down and give way to people trying to cross it.
Critics of the shared space idea say it simply will not work in an area with so many cars and pedestrians as Belgrave Road.
Dharmesh Lakhani, pictured, of the Belgrave Business Association, is among the ten people who will report back to the mayor.
He said: “We are going to go away and try to find a scheme that works for both the residents who live here and the businesses whose livelihoods depend on the area. Personally I am in favour of a shared space scheme. It would make it a better environment for pedestrians while maintaining access for traffic. It would slow the traffic down and it would mean drivers won’t cut in on each other like the do at the moment. We do need to do something. At the moment we have nearly 100 per cent occupancy for retail premises but it is a difficult trading time. If we don’t make improvements people may decide “This is not for us” and move on if we don’t get the right scheme. There’s no danger of that happening at the moment but we have to avoid that.”
