£8m makeover begins on Eastcheap and Leys Avenue

Work is underway on vital ‘Street Scene’ improvements for Letchworth Garden City’s two main shopping streets.

Major changes on Eastcheap and Leys Avenue will transform their ‘look and feel’.

Leys Square is being extended with new landscaped seating areas, attractive water features and sculptures between the ‘square’ and The Colonnade, opposite Letchworth Garden City railway station.

Using high quality materials and finishes, the improvements will also redefine the relationship between the pavements and the roadways.

There will be convenient ‘nose-in’ on-street car parking, plus generous over-sized parallel parking spaces for deliveries and disabled use.

To help create a ‘family-friendly’ environment, which is both highly attractive and accessible to all, there will be major changes to the way in which traffic flows along both streets.

The flow of traffic on Leys Avenue will be reversed, with vehicles travelling down, not up the street, as at present.

A new traffic-signal controlled junction [where Eastcheap and Leys Avenue meet] will replace the existing Station Road roundabout. Vehicles travelling along Eastcheap will be able to turn right down Leys Avenue or continue onto Station Road.

The £8m scheme is being funded by Letchworth Garden City Heritage Foundation, expenditure which would normally have been picked up by the local authorities.

The Foundation has appointed Skanska as contractors for the scheme which will take 58 weeks to complete. Work will be suspended between 13 November and 17 January, for the Christmas trading period.

Download the Next Steps Broadsheet - May 2009 for further information.