CONCERNS are growing over the adverse impact of plans to pedestrianise Salisbury city centre, with one community leader warning it could all result in “huge chaos”.

Wiltshire Council plans to introduce ‘People Friendly Streets’ by banning all through-traffic from certain areas of the city centre.

Although most are in favour of pedestrianisation in principle, some are worried about the repercussions it will have on other areas of the city.

Councillor David Lovibond is particularly concerned about the Milford and Laverstock area, which he believes will be the most affected.

Speaking on behalf of the Milford Preservation Group, of which he is secretary, he said: “Our concern is that Wiltshire Council has not appreciated that traffic will not simply disappear but, like water flowing downhill, find other ways to get where it needs to.

“If you’re driving from Southampton and certain streets are closed, naturally you will look at other routes into the city centre and the first that’s available to you as you come in is the narrow country lane of Petersfinger and Milford Mill Road through to Milford Mill Road bridge.

“What concerns me is the impact of greater volumes of traffic on the current infrastructure and the impact on local residents.”

According to Cllr Lovibond, Milford Mill Road and its iconic yet fragile Grade I listed, 15th century bridge doesn’t have the capacity to cope with increased levels of traffic.

When plans were drafted, he feels that “more consideration” should have been given to the “unintended consequences” of shutting certain roads as well as ways to mitigate them.

He added: “For a trial to be effective all the areas that are going to be affected by these measures should be considered fairly.

“It’s not good enough to say ‘let’s close a few roads and see what happens’ we’ve got to have monitoring in place and traffic counting on the A36 so we can all see what the impact is going to be.

“Part of the trial should also be to put in place mitigating factors otherwise it will all be a huge chaos and a great mess and we’ll be back to square one.”

Leaflets outlining what Cllr Lovibond feels will be the direct consequences of the county council’s plans are being distributed across Milford and Laverstock.

Residents are being invited to get in touch with their views at milfordpreservationgroup@gmail.com and fill in the council’s survey at bit.ly/2Xk6f67