New bus gate on Sheffield’s Arundel Gate given green light

Members of Sheffield City Council’s strategy and resources policy committee agreed to the plan, part of Clean Air Zone anti-pollution measures. It will ban all northbound traffic except buses, taxis and private hire cars from driving beyond a point near to the Novotel.

A council report explained: “The purpose of the bus gate is to remove through traffic in the northbound direction on Arundel Gate, which in turn will not only act a measure within the Clean Air Plan, but also allows the carriageway to be redesigned, to create a high-quality public space and drive investment and redevelopment of the existing Arundel Gate frontages.”

An Experimental Traffic Order will be put in place to assess the effect of the bus gate and allow for public consultation after the first six months. Work is expected to start in mid-January with the bus gate coming into force the following month.

Cars will be able to use turn-backs near the Novotel and traffic will be diverted on to Sheaf Street and up to Park Square roundabout.

The scheme should improve bus journey times – the 120 bus, one of the longest routes in the city, often takes as long to get through the city centre as it does to get all the way from there to Mosborough, committee members heard.

‘We can’t be backing off’

Council head of strategic transport and infrastructure Tom Finnegan-Smith said that the scheme would also make the road safer for pedestrians and cyclists. It will be improved by the ‘Grey to Green’ planting seen around the city centre.

Mr Finnegan-Smith said that installing the bus gate, plus measures to stop buses idling, is the only way to achieve legal levels of nitrogen dioxide in the air.

Coun Joe Otten was worried that sending traffic on to Sheaf Street would only move the air pollution problem on to a busy road already affected by diesel fumes from trains. Mr Finnegan-Smith said the levels are lower on Sheaf Street than Arundel Gate, because of the ‘canyoning’ effect of tall buildings on the road. It is the highest location for those emissions.

Meeting chair, LibDem leader Coun Shaffaq Mohammed, asked why the plan was not for a 12-hour bus gate. He was told that, if a 24-hour traffic order was made, it could be adjusted to a shorter time span later.

Green group leader Coun Douglas Johnson said that the World Health Organisation’s recommended safe level is a quarter of what would be reached after the changes.

He asked: “When are we going to get to that point? We’re going in the right direction, you can see by the work that has been done there, but what more are we going to do to do this?

“Bear in mind, we’ve just voted basically to keep a generator running in the city centre at an extra 10 grand a month (for Fargate Container Park) – there is a lot more we need to do and we can’t be backing off from this right now.”

On pedestrian safety, he said: “This is actually talking about improving the living environment for people living in a dense area and which we anticipate to increase over the next 15 years.”

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