One for the road! Streets to shut for outdoor food and drink
MANCHESTER city centre is to be transformed with roads closed to traffic and opened up for outdoor drinking and dining.
In the Northern Quarter, Edge Street and Dorsey Street will be pedestrianised along with Thomas Street, which has already been made traffic-free.
Blossom Street in Ancoats and parts of the Gay Village, including Bloom Street and Richmond Street, will also be subject to temporary traffic regulation orders.
The closures will enable restaurants and bars to put tables and chairs on the pavements while reducing pedestrian pinch-points.
Elsewhere throughout the city centre, King Street, Bridge Street, the Corn Exchange, Wakefield Street, James Leigh Street and the Great Northern also form part of the council’s plans to help hospitality businesses recover. Further road closures are also expected.
Coun Angeliki Stogia, executive member for environment, planning and transport, said: “To support the hospitality industry as it faces its biggest challenge yet, we will look at making streets more people-friendly by supporting road closures, including in the city centre where space is at a premium so that people have as much space as they need to socially distance over the summer months.”
The council will waive fees for businesses to apply for tableand-chairs licences, and simplifying the online application process. The move will help cafes, bars and restaurants with limited inside space to reopen from this Saturday.
Many businesses will have to cut their capacities to comply with the new ‘one metre plus’ social distancing rule, and the council hopes making extra outdoor space available will enable them to increase their covers to a more financially viable level. More than 30 businesses have already applied to the council’s licensing team to request permission for the use of temporary outdoor space.
Extra signage has been installed across the city centre to remind people to keep their distance from each other, especially in high footfall areas such as Market Street.
A team of uniformed street marshals with experience in crowd management will work across the city centre to deal with any potential crowding issues quickly and efficiently.