Improvements to Sheep Street and Silver Street

This work forms the first phase of a series of improvements to the town centre and follows a consultation exercise which was held last summer.  Exhibitions were set up to showcase the plans and feedback was invited and discussed.

The Sheep Street/Silver Street works start on 4 May and are due to be completed in October. When work is finished there will be more space for pedestrians, with improved road crossings, and a rejuvenation of public spaces. There will also be the introduction of a dedicated bus lane and bus priority to encourage public transport use.

The council's ambition is to make the town centre more accessible, convenient and safer for pedestrians while maintaining access to the town for vehicles.

High quality paving on footways and around pedestrian crossings will create a more accessible, integrated and pedestrian-friendly environment.

Sheep Street and Silver Street will be closed to through traffic for a period of time during the works but disruption will be kept to a minimum while work is taking place and pedestrians will still have unhindered access to shops, offices, cafes and pubs.

The usual flow of through vehicles will be diverted from London Road to follow a route along Doddington Road, Croyland Road and Oxford Street. This diversion will be in place until October. Access for deliveries to businesses will still be permitted.

Signs will be highly visible around the town to make the diversion clear and to ensure the public know Wellingborough is 'open for business as usual'. Staff will also be on site at the former site of The Swan pub near the junction of Oxford Road.

One bus stop by the Hind Hotel will be relocated to Commercial Way but reinstated after the contractors leave the site.

The £2 million initiative is being delivered by the Northamptonshire Capital Programme Deliver Team which consists of Northamptonshire County Council (NCC), the Borough Council of Wellingborough (BCW), North Northants Development Company (NNDC) and MGWSP, NCC's service provider. It is funded through Growth Area Funding, through NNDC.

Sheep Street/Silver Street is just the start of a series of improvement phases. It is all part of a much wider approach to enhance the town centre, which will see later improvements taking place in Market Street/Gloucester Place, Croyland Gardens and the High Street.

The first and second in a series of regular newsletters have been produced and can be downloaded here.