THE CHANGING FACE OF SHOPPING IN BRIGG TOWN CENTRE

An early 1970s view of Bridge Street, with a heavy lorry in the Market Place about to cross the County Bridge. Picture: KEN FISHER COLLECTION.

A generation has grown up in Brigg without knowing the town centre when the A18 ran through Wrawby Street, Bigby Street, the Market Place and Bridge Street.

The inner relief road, including the new Ancholme Way bridge and widened and re-aligned Barnard Avenue, opened in  early 1993. This saw parts of the town centre become the pedestrianised zone that's such a familiar feature today.
One trader 22 years ago, soon after the changes were introduced, used the phrase "no pain without gain." For those were difficult trading times for many.
In February, 1993 a campaign "highlighting a number of problems to have hit the town since the new road opened" was signed by 73 traders.
There were fears that Brigg was in danger of becoming a ghost town, with  more shops closing. A cash machine at one Brigg bank saw almost 500 fewer transactions a week, opponents of the scheme pointed out.
Supporters of pedestrianisation felt removing 16,000 car, van and lorry "movements" s a day from the centre of the own was a major step forward. However, opponents of the scheme took the opposite view, stressing a huge loss of  "passing trade" to businesses.
We observed this Brigg phenomenon in the 1980s from the lofty perch of the second floor newsroom at the Lincolnshire Times office, 57 Wrawby Street. We  saw  car after car pulling up on the main road, parking outside Bowen's Bakers  and their drivers nipping in to buy a loaf or two, hopefully before the traffic wardens spotted them.
Similarly, in Bigby Street, a newsagents/shop lost its passing trade as this once busy primary route was downgraded so tiny Cadney became the only destination.
A Brigg Chamber of Trade official commented 22 years ago that trade had been quiet during the early months of pedestrianisation, but it would take time for people to adjust to the new arrangements.
People were promised safer, cleaner shopping when they visited Brigg town centre.
A stock of archive pictures of Brigg town centre, taken in 1994/5, shows many empty shops, many offered for sale. Eventually, major utilities, such as Yorkshire Electricity and British Gas, closed their showrooms, meaning people who had come into Brigg town centre to pay their quarterly bills no longer did so. These householders often visited local shops while in the town centre, so that trade was lost.
It was some years before Brigg began to reap the benefits council planners forecast when proceeding with the pedestrianisation scheme.
Despite people looking back with rose-tinted spectacles to Brigg decades ago when the original A18 route was still it place, it is difficult to argue that the vehicle-choked town centre pre-1993 was better than it is today.
We must resist the temptation to use the phrase "traffic free" in this regard because, as Brigg Blog keeps reporting, our town centre - even after 22 years - continues to see lorries, vans and cars that are not supposed to be there.
This is because of laziness on the part of drivers, but also because the authorities decline to get to grips by enforcing the regulations and imposing cash penalties during regular blitzes on  offenders who ignore the no entry signs to Wrawby Street and the Market Place.