Campaigners refusing to give up over closure

CAMPAIGNERS fighting against plans to permanently ban cars from Shandwick Place today refused to give up, despite tram bosses planning to press ahead with the move.

The city council looks set to approve traffic orders to ban cars from the key artery, forcing traffic to be re-routed around surrounding residential streets.

Local residents claim the move will increase both noise and air pollution, but the council has said the evidence gathered by campaigners is "unreliable."

But Allan Alstead, a local resident and Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Transport, said figures gathered by campaigners were based on the council's own statistics.

He said: "We're basing it on their figures, so they must be saying their own figures are unreliable - they're beginning to lose the plot.

"It's absolute nonsense to say our figures are unreliable and I would argue they are more credible than TIE's."

Council officials have recommended that councillors press ahead with a city-wide shake-up of traffic measures needed for when the trams are up and running."

A decision is set to be made at the council's transport committee later this month.