November 16, 2016
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Retailers and residents at the northern end of Elizabeth Street are angry that the partial closure of the street went ahead without consultation.
Elizabeth Street trial angers businesses A three month trial at the Hill Street intersection, which involves the partial closure of Elizabeth Street to traffic from Hill Street and State Highway One, got off to a bumpy start on Monday November 7. Social media pages ran hot with complaints about the changed layout, which saw cars and buses driving down Elizabeth Street on the
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wrong side of the road and vehicles doing u-turns at the intersection when they realised they couldn’t enter Elizabeth Street. A petition was started to have the trial cancelled immediately and some retailers were threatening to take matters into their own hands and remove the cones and road markers themselves. The new design also fell
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foul of local emergency services. Warkworth fire chief Ian Davies said it would delay the response time of volunteers who would normally use Elizabeth Street to get to the fire station. He said it could add one to two minutes to the turn-out time for the six volunteers affected, possibly more if the road was congested. This could
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mean one of two fire engines might fail to reach an incident on time. Retailer Katya Maker said the barriers had had a direct and detrimental effect on a number of businesses, but the repercussions had gone well beyond Elizabeth Street. “It’s affecting the whole town,” she said.
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