CIRENCESTER town councillors voted to approve a recommendation that the county council installs a gate or drop down bollard to prevent motorists using Cricklade Street during restricted hours.

The proposal was put to members of the council at a special meeting on Thursday, April 6, having been recommended by the Cricklade Street Task and Finish Group (TFG).

The TFG includes representatives from the town and district councils, police and the chamber of commerce, as well as Cricklade Street businesses, residents and landlords.

The group was set up to coincide with the introduction of a one-way system on Cricklade Street, as well as an order banning motorists from entering between 9.30am and 4.30pm.

Last week police began fining motorists entering the town centre street during restricted hours, with the town council now set to put the idea for the experimental order to Gloucestershire County Council.

Town council chief executive Andrew Tubb, speaking at the meeting on Thursday, said if approved “the experimental order can be brought in almost immediately”.

“Very simply, off the back of recent concerns about the increase in traffic using Cricklade Street during the restricted times, we held a TFG meeting and the consensus was to go to GCC to ask for an experimental order,” he said.

“An experimental order can be introduced without having to go through the Traffic Regulation Order (TRO) process which can take many months, including periods of consultation.

“The experimental order can be brought in almost immediately, and you then run the consultation process alongside that and you run the TRO process parallel to that,” he continued.

“It means that you can resolve an issue immediately rather than waiting for the legal process to reach its conclusion,” he added.

The proposal, as it currently stands, would mean a barrier would prevent general motorists entering the street between 10am and 4pm, however some councillors took issue with the timings.

Deputy mayor Cllr Nigel Robbins, said: “That means that people can still use it as a semi rat-run if they’re going off to Stroud and Tetbury before 10 o’clock.

“It also means that people who are taking their children, and I believe many do, between 8.30 and 9 o’clock to Powell’s School will be subjected to traffic coming the other way,” he said.

Mr Tubb said “there would be an argument for extending the afternoon time” but that the start time “was to enable businesses in Cricklade Street to service shops and enable deliveries before 10am”.

Cllr Jenny Hincks said blue badge holders “quite often go to the bank before 10am” and that “you can quite often see them struggling over those times”.