The Hanover and Tarner low traffic neighbourhood scheme was handed a lifeline at a town hall meeting.

Green and Labour councillors reached a compromise, backed by the Tories, to spend £1 million that had been set aside for future schemes on the Hanover and Tarner LTN instead.

The scheme looked doomed when Labour drove through budget changes last month that switched £1.1 million to public toilets from the pilot project in Hanover and Tarner.

Then it emerged that proposed crossings, new trees and other changes in Elm Grove, Queen’s Park Road and Egremont Place might be at risk.

As a result, senior councillors thrashed out a compromise at Brighton and Hove City Council’s final policy and resources committee meeting before the local elections in May.

The Argus:

But the prospect of any work starting in the area is some months away after the recent uncertainty.

The deal agreed tonight called for “buy-in from residents, with a clear emphasis on planned road safety improvement measures in Elm Grove, Queen’s Park Road and Egremont Place”.

A detailed report is expected to be prepared for the Policy and Resources Committee meeting scheduled for June – after the elections – so that councillors can sign off the spending.

And the final designs, which were due to have been debated on Tuesday, will be decided at a future meeting of the council’s environment, transport and sustainability committee.

If approved, the council will have to advertise a number of “traffic regulation orders” (TROs) as part of a statutory consultation before work can start.

Get more stories delivered to your inbox every day by signing up to our morning newsletter

Green councillor David Gibson, who represents Hanover and Elm Grove ward, said that his party and Labour were trying to fund residents’ ambitions for the scheme’s boundary roads.

Cllr Gibson said: “This pilot is the trial – and if we are serious about our carbon-neutral ambitions, we need to be serious and do these trials.

“Some people are very sceptical. Some people are very positive. The proof of the pudding is in the eating.”

Labour councillor Carmen Appich said that her party’s proposals to tackled problems with public toilets were not meant to be at the expense of the long-promised boundary road improvements.

Fellow Labour councillor Amanda Evans, who represents Queen’s Park ward, spoke about the scheme outside the meeting.

MOST READ:

Cllr Evans said that the LTN was the hottest topic in her inbox – and more than 90 per cent negative.

She said: “The gist was – and remains – that the whole scheme is in the wrong area, that is too steep and doesn’t need it, that it is likely to cause more pollution and congestion, not less, that it will seriously disadvantage disabled, elderly and low-income residents as well as local independent businesses, etc.

“The only positive mail has generally been more recent and focused on the hard-fought battle to get urgent safety improvements (and) mitigations around the edges of the scheme.

“And the gist on this has been that these measures are long overdue and necessary with or without the ‘awful’ LTN itself.”