For several months, Gloucester’s gate streets grew increasingly unsafe for pedestrians – especially in the evenings when traffic restrictions relaxed. Motorists began using these streets either as shortcuts through the city or simply as convenient places to park. Sometimes, walking through these pedestrianised areas felt risky due to the speed of vehicles.

Regulations limited access from 10am to 5pm, but outside those hours vehicles could enter for deliveries and collections. Some drivers exploited this rule to pick up takeaways or cut across the city centre, while others parked along the streets. The resulting traffic made walking even more dangerous and caused unnecessary damage to the paving, prompting us to act.

City Council member for community engagement, Councillor Rebecca Trimnell (pictured with me above), and I raised this issue with the county council in 2024. We had both witnessed vehicles being driven along the gate streets in the evening, in particular along Westgate Street, experiencing the danger for ourselves. If we didn’t do anything we knew that it would get worse. So we opened up discussions with the county council.

Councils working together

As the highway authority, the county council is responsible for approving and enforcing Traffic Regulation Orders (TROs). In early meetings, we discussed how changes to TROs could help, since enforcing delivery-only regulations was challenging.

We eventually agreed with the county council to update the rules: deliveries are now permitted between 8am to 10am and 5pm to 6pm, with no overnight deliveries except by prearranged permit from 6pm to 8am. From 10am to 5pm, the gate streets remain strictly pedestrianised.

To enforce these regulations, the county council installed automatic number plate recognition cameras at the entrances to each of the four gate streets. These cameras became operational on 1st June.

I am really pleased with how the city council and the county council collaborated to resolve the problem along the gate streets. It does show the two-tier system works when there is a will to do so.