Arbroath needs a ‘yellow brick road’ for visitors to find their way to the town centre and keep the heart of the community beating.
That and other radical suggestions came out of the town’s recent design charrette which included a proposal to un-dual part of Burnside Drive which divides the West Port, railway and bus stations from the main High Street.
Input to the Arbroath charrette the latest in a series being run across the district by Angus Council is now being collated and will be brought back for discussion at a future date, but the new chair of the town’s recently reformed community council said a number of visitor-related issues revolved around access to the centre of the town.
“The issue of where the High Street is in relation to the bus station and particularly the train station quite clearly is a problem to visitors arriving in the town,” said Kevin Smith.
“This is, of course, an old issue, and is not only due to the almost complete lack of signage, but the dual carriageway.
“What we need is a clear obvious signposted route from the train station to the High Street, not forgetting the West Port.
“All we need is a wizard to draw up a few simple plans, leading us down to the carriageway, through a well-lit and signposted archway already in place across Lidl and the Co-operative car park to the High Street.
“A straight possibly mono-blocked path with a few zebra crossings should be quite straightforward.”
Mr Smith said other traffic suggestions included going back to the future, with the radical idea of undualling the road and allowing traffic to enter the Westport and High Street from Brothock Bridge, with perhaps a one-way system entering West Abbey Street and coming out into Ponderlaw from East Abbey Street.
Montrose’s charrette is next up on the programme, due to run later this month.
Local councillor David May has encouraged locals to feed their views into the process and has asked council officers to give an Angus-wide picture of the response to each town charrette.
“I would like to know how much each has cost and the attendance, in particular by members of the public,” he said.