Liverpool Car Free Day: Roads could close again for event - leader

Traffic built up around the city after a key route was temporarily shut

A council leader said the authority had not ruled out closing roads again for car-free activities despite problems surrounding last year's event.

Liverpool's Car Free Day, which prevented vehicles from a city centre route, ended two hours early due to a traffic build-up on 22 September.

Liam Robinson said lessons had been learned from the previous issues.

He said the council would look at ways to close down roads appropriately to encourage the use of public transport.

Large parts of the Strand - one of the city's major routes - were closed as part of Car Free Day with variety of activities on offer to promote active travel alternatives.

A Freedom of Information revealed the council spent more than £37,000 on Car Free Day, the Local Democracy Reporting Service reports.

Almost £9,000 was used for traffic management and an additional £4,800 for stewarding with the bulk of the money spent on the activities.

The road was due to be closed from 10:00 BST and 16:00 as part of Car Free Day

Mr Robinson said: "A lot of lessons have been learnt and we fully appreciate something that was done with the right intent didn't work out well. 

"Partly the weather didn't help but we can't blame the weather alone and I'm not seeking to do that.

"From our perspective we know there's a lot we can learn for this year's Car Free Day and future car-free activities."

Problems arose with large queues of traffic building up around the city centre with images and videos of the long tailbacks posted on social media.

Mr Robinson added, despite last year's shortcomings, he would not rule out road closures in the future where appropriate.

He said: "We're always looking for ways in which we can appropriately close roads in a way that can sort of be really beneficial to the city."