Enjoying Chester Safely

Cheshire West and Chester Council has been working with partners to prepare Chester for its next phase of reopening. What will the city look like for the next phase of tackling the virus?

Northgate Street saw the first of the pop-up measures this week as the pavement was widened from George Street to Abbey Square to provide more space for pedestrians.

Entry to the city will be different. Government guidance is to only use public transport where necessary, bus services over the past few months have been reduced and are slowly returning. Chester’s Park and Ride service is not currently operating.

As a reminder Government guidance is that face masks will be compulsory for passengers using public transport from next week.

Cycling has seen a welcome increase and following the governments indicative allocations of emergency active travel funds, the Council is seeking suggestions from communities before introducing new measures but could include pop up cycle routes into the city and additional cycle stands. This started with a ‘walk, cycle, thrive’ hack led by the Good for Nothing group last week.

The safety of visitors to the City is a priority and as such the following measure are being put in place:

• To help maintain social distancing and provide safe areas for pedestrians to queue at shops there will be road closures from 10.30am to 4.30pm on Frodsham Street, Foregate Street, Eastgate Street and St John Street.
  During the pedestrian times, queuing will be alongside shops using the pavement, pedestrians can use the road area and are recommended to keep to the left side when walking. A one-way system will be introduced for Chester’s Rows as there is less space to observe safe distancing. Shoppers are asked to follow the signs.

• From 15 June St Werburgh Street will be closed to all traffic as security bollards are installed. Access will remain for blue badge drivers at Kaleyards.

• The 24 hour taxi rank on Foregate Street (south side) will also be relocated between a point 39 metres west of the centre line of its junction with Love Street and a point 20 metres west of the west side of Bath Street.

• Chester will have a multi-agency team in the city centre offering guidance and reassurance from the 15 June. The team will be a first point of contact to help members of the public. With access to information from the CCTV cameras, practical advice will be available for information about queue lengths and where needed helping with queues and helping with social distancing. The Team will support the CH1ChesterBID City Hosts Monica and Luka whilst the city gets used to the new way of visiting and working. Maintaining a safe and welcoming city centre is their priority.

• City centre streets are being deep cleaned at present using new jet washing and steam cleaning equipment and this will continue through the summer.

• The street cleaning teams will be working to slightly different rotors with the very early morning street cleaning not being necessary whilst the pubs, clubs and restaurants remain closed. This means the teams will be visible during the day.