“Last week, two days the bridge was closed and sales went down by 15, 20%. I don’t know what’s going to happen. The only thing I’m worrying about is my business. I have no plan – just wait and see what they’re going to do. Hopefully they don’t close the bridge, but when they do close it, there’s nothing we can do.”
The speaker is the manager of a shop on Mill Road, Cambridge, a street whose mile of diversity and vibrant culture is famous across the city. Independent eateries, indie supermarkets, bike repair shops, a carpet shop, enterprises offering therapy of various kinds – it’s all there. Enough, in fact, to celebrate itself every year with a winter fair, a hugely popular event that closes the road to traffic for the day and fills it with people on foot.
A split mile
The mile is divided, more-or-less, at its midpoint, by a steep bridge that takes Mill Road over the tracks of the railway north of Cambridge station. And Mill Road is deeply divided over what should be done with this bridge.
The council plan is for a modal filter – a redesign of the road to control what types of traffic pass through. It will close the bridge to cars, allowing passage for buses, pedestrians, cyclists, emergency services, taxis and registered vehicles owned by blue badge holders. The two-day closure was for work on the filter to be progressed.
Shapour Meftah, chair of Mill Road Traders Association, tells East Anglia Bylines how they are fighting this restriction of traffic over the bridge:
“I talked to a lot of businesses, and 95% said they don’t want this bridge to be closed to traffic. It’s going to affect their businesses. But the county council just want to go ahead with their agenda. And once that bridge is closed, lots of shops will have to close or change to something like a cafeteria or restaurant. We haven’t given up with the bridge yet, because there’s a court case going on, and we are hoping that will stop it.”
The court case is a legal challenge mounted by Friends of Mill Road Bridge 2. They argue, amongst other things, that the reasons for the restriction are not supported by evidence, and that a substantial funding arrangement from the Department for Transport amounted to an improper motive for the county council’s grant of the traffic regulation order.
For and against
The day I walked along Mill Road interviewing traders, I was surprised to see very few signs in shop windows opposing the bridge restriction. I’d spotted more on earlier visits. Shapour offers this explanation:
“There’s opposition to shops who are displaying anything to do with the bridge. Some of the residents are for the bridge closure. They come to the shop and say if you put that on your display, they’re not going to come here, or do any shopping, or have anything to do with this shop.”
Possibly some of those pro-restriction residents are members of the Cambridge cycling campaign Camcycle. Anna Williams, Camcycle’s head of campaigns and engagement, told me the organisation had a sizeable membership in the wards encompassing Mill Road. 11% of its members live in Romsey, 8% in Petersfield. “Camcycle has around 1,750 members. Around two thirds of those live within Cambridge and the ward with the biggest number of members is Romsey… so quite a lot of people in the Mill Road area support our work.”
She goes on:
“We try to work with local groups for this and for all campaigns. Mill Road 4 People want to see a modal filter on the bridge and improvements to the public realm, so wider pavements, more cycle parking, more planting. This isn’t just about the bus gate, it’s about the whole environment and improving things for people right the way along the street. We’re working with Mill Road 4 People and some other organisations, including Living Streets and Cambridge Parents for Sustainable Travel.”
Who’s a bus?
But the opposition goes on. Sheridan James, who last year threatened to circumvent restrictions by self-identifying as a bus, sought to stop the latest work with a group of protesters blocking workers’ access to the site. She tells me her solution to Mill Road’s congestion would be this:
“Get rid of the GCP [the Greater Cambridge Partnership, which oversees traffic and transport in Cambridge] and let the people organise themselves. We’re grown up so we can handle it. There wasn’t any congestion to speak of here, until all the interference and the road closures and the road narrowing and the wobbly little posts everywhere. And by the way, I’m a cyclist.”
A similar modal filter on the bridge during the 2020 lockdown proved controversial. Different perceptions were aired as to how it had affected the road’s traffic, and it was removed after a few months.
As examples of successful traffic filtering, Anna Williams cited Bridge Street, in another part of Cambridge, and Waltham Forest. Meanwhile, neutrality does seem to be possible. A charity shop staff member on Mill Road declined to be interviewed because she’d heard so much for and against the project and was tired of it.
East Anglia Bylines, on the other hand, is watching to see what happens.
NOTE. This version of this article corrects an inaccurate figure for Camcycle’s membership that was given in earlier versions.
