Ecclesall Road Sheffield: Dentist fears 'Red Route' bus scheme parking ban will be catastrophic for patients

Principal Dentist Richard Brogden, of LWT Dental Care, on Ecclesall Road, near Hunters Bar, Sheffield, has submitted a six-page letter of objection to Sheffield City Council outlining LWT’s opposition complete with a map and charts featuring patent numbers, ages and commuting distances.

Sheffield City Council is proposing to roll-out London-style ‘Red Routes’ with bus lanes operating from 7am to 7pm on Ecclesall Road and Abbeydale Road, while banning all other vehicles from stopping, parking, waiting or loading.

The proposals are part of the £55m Connecting Sheffield scheme which aims to encourage people to switch to walking, cycling or public transport, particularly when commuting to work to combat climate change and improve health.

However, Mr Brogden said: “For patients using our services this poses major challenges to accessing our services. The suggestion may arise that patients or visitors to the practice use roads peripheral to the main Ecclesall Road, yet these roads within the Greystones and Sharrow Vale areas are already severely congested with parking themselves.”

Mr Brogden added despite 33 per cent of LWT’s 11,000 plus patients coming from the local S11 area, the practice has many other patients coming from wider catchment areas needing to travel long distances.

He also stressed that 22 per cent of LWT’s patients are aged over 65, with most using cars or taxis, and 18.5 per cent are aged under 18 and dependent on parents being able to drive them to the dental practice.

Mr Brogden said: “Implementing the ‘Red Route’ outside our practice will simply discourage those who find certain everyday tasks too stressful, and therefore not access the services they rely on.”

He added: “By limiting the ability of those who are more vulnerable, elderly, infirm or frail from being able to park outside the practice through the implementation of the ‘Red Route’, we believe that this will discourage them from attending. In addition, the added pressure onto parents and carers will further impose difficulties that may prevent or reduce access to our practice.”

Dental practices also have to be compliant with the Disability Discrimination Act in ensuring they are access-compliant, according to Mr Brogden.

Mr Brogden said: “We believe that the proposals for Ecclesall Road directly affect accessibility to our practice, and bring unfair discrimination onto our more vulnerable patients, including those with limited mobility that use our services. Those who have the time and means to access our services will do so. By contrast, others who are not in this position will be discouraged, resulting in health inequalities across our patient base.

“We cannot support these plans in their current format. As a practice, we can certainly encourage more carbon neutral means for our patients to attend the practice, but the decimation of the current parking arrangements will have a significant, and adverse effect on access for all.”

Mr Brogden feels that before the council can implement its plan consideration needs to be given to alternate necessary parking in the area and expecting already over-saturated neighbourhoods to absorb extra parking will not work.

For the ‘Red Route’ bus plan to work Mr Brogden stressed ‘excellent public transport systems’ would need to be in place and he believes the existing bus services are too ‘infrequent’ and unreliable.

Mr Brogden also criticised the council’s consultation process after LWT had not received any correspondence about the ‘Red Route’ proposals and by the time the dental practice raised its objections the official consultation period had been completed.

However, the council’s Transport and Climate Policy Committee agreed to meet with Mr Brogden on Wednesday, February 8, to discuss LWT’s concerns.

Mr Brogden said: “I would implore the council to engage more with the businesses directly affected by these propositions, otherwise we may well need to resort to alternative methods of challenging this initiative. We need to raise this as a serious issue in order to protect our business and the service we offer to our patients.”

Chris Lawrance, of Design Studio, has previously said the ‘route’ would be ‘devastating’ for business. He said customers would be taken past on the bus, and side streets were already ‘saturated’ with residents’ cars, so customers in vehicles will have nowhere to park.

Karen Grady, of Lobby Toff hair salon, has also previously said she also feels the route will be ‘devastating’ because her customers do not come by bus when they come from Hillsborough, Stannington, Hope and Hathersage.

The proposals are funded through the Department for Transport’s Transforming Cities Fund. The South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority was awarded £166m, with £55m going to Sheffield for active travel and public transport improvements across the city.

Mr Brogden added: “It would be good to work together for the greater good and not to have a steamroller mentality with what is a catastrophic idea.”

Sheffield City Council was given more than 24 hours to comment but was unable to do so, however the authority aims to provide a statement in the near future.