Newport business owners Lucy and Jackal Luk from Wok ‘n’ Roll in St Mary’s Street, Newport, we’re out this morning rallying round the businesses in St Mary’s St. I caught up with them at Tea on The Cobbles, Lucy commented ’We can turn this into a positive and use the road, now closed to place tables and chairs outside our premises. This will encourage more pedestrians to come down the street. The weather forecast is to be dry and sunny most of this week.’ However all the businesses will be affected in varying ways. The popular Community Hub at the bottom of St Mary’s St, next door to The Royal Victoria Hotel has had to close for safety reasons.
St Mary’s Street is a beautiful cobbled street in the centre of Newport and has many wonderful independent businesses including: Wok ‘n’ Roll, Tea on the Cobbles, Award winning hairdressers Mane, Rennie & Rupert, ZigZags, Gilbeys Antiques, Tylers Gas & Electrical, Templeton Jones, Duignan Phelps Optometrist, Catalogue Surplus Shop, Vine and Malt, Age UK, Francescos Hairdressers, Salon 22, Ozzy’s Bar, Drew Udall & Co, The Back & Body Care Centre, Capello, Vaughan Davies Accountants and Sluice Juice.
All these businesses need our support during not only a difficult trading period but particularly now as they are being additionally impacted by this road closure.
The road and footpath directly outside The Royal Victoria Hotel in St. Mary's Street, Newport is now temporarily closed (Possibly for 3 weeks?) as part of an exclusion zone in the interests of public safety. The safest route for pedestrians from the end of St Mary’s St is via the churchyard.
However, access from the southern end (By the island) of St Mary’s Street will remain open to allow deliveries to business frontages where there is no other alternative. Council teams will monitor this arrangement over the coming days and work with businesses to ensure this is as effective as possible. Quantum Traffic Management will arranging signs and the safety of the traffic flow in this area.
Chairperson of Newport Chamber of Commerce, Karen Woodcock has said the chamber will support the businesses wherever and however it can. We will speak with the relevant parties concerned to get more long term information.
