Campaigners fighting to have a road re-opened in the centre of Exeter have blasted a county council report which recommends a fresh public consultation.
“Quite simply it is not good enough,” said campaign spokesman Ian Frankum. “This is just kicking the can down Dryden Road!”
A meeting of the city’s highways and traffic orders committee (HATOC) next week (October 9) is likely to offer people in Exeter a chance to have their say on the controversial closure of Dryden Road in a two-month consultation early in 2026.
The road has been closed to vehicles since Covid in 2020, having been shut off in an effort to create a safe traffic-free route into the city.
Local cycling groups and environmentalists say the closure has been a huge success, with safer and cleaner cycling and walking opportunities for travellers.
But the campaigners say it has just moved traffic problems elsewhere, and should open again straight away. The committee will hear that the closure cannot be reversed immediately because fresh traffic orders would have to be sought, and the recommendation is to go out to consultation.
The recent controversy over low traffic neighbourhoods elsewhere in the city included criticism over the way the public was involved, and the report on Dryden Road says: “Previous experience supports the need for proper consultation.”
But Mr Frankum said campaigners were not satisfied.
“On face value some might consider a further public consultation a great victory and a clear admission that the original ‘consultation’ was at best flawed and at worst potentially breached government standards.
“But it is hard not to conclude that officers are merely trying to kick the can down the road, prolonging the pain suffered daily by the thousands affected by the unintended consequences of this daft decision.”
He challenged the way the review of the road closure was carried out and summed up: “The report has done nothing to mend the trust the public have in Devon County Council, a trust so severely breached recently with other decisions.
”The councillors who are currently on the HATOC did not make this awful choice, but they do have it within their gift to fix it for thousands of Exeter residents.”
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