THE pavement-widening scheme in Marlborough has been branded ‘hideous’ by a trader in the town centre.

Originally, the town council planned for the scheme to run the full length of the High Street.

But now bollards have only been installed outside five premises, at the request of those businesses.

The pavement-widening safety barriers were installed by Wiltshire Highways outside Bunces, The Royal Oak, The Food Gallery, The Polly Tea Rooms and Caffe Nero on Marlborough High Street.

Elaine Ferry who runs Elaine’s Travel said the bollards were ‘hideous’ and ‘downgraded the town’.

“We’ve got horrible red bollards that go out into the High Street, I’m hoping it’s not going to be there forever,” she said.

“I’m hoping they’re going to do something better than that.”

“It downgrades the town, it’s not pretty, people have to walk out into the High Street now because they can’t walk on the pavement. You have to physically walk in the road to go past.

“They do nothing for our lovely, old historic town and I think it’s more than hideous.

“It’s coming up to winter, who’s going to be sat outside on a day like today? I mean, thank God they didn’t go all the way down.”

Emma Waring-Jones, who runs Marlborough Confectioners in Old Hughenden Yard, said that scheme looks ‘pretty awful’ but is glad that only the businesses that wanted the pavements wider are affected.

“It’s a compromise,” she said. “It’s quite late, as in it’s now the end of summer but I walked in on Saturday and there were plenty of people sitting out enjoying themselves.”

“I don’t know what else they could have done in the situation.”

She added that the temporary fixture had no impact on her business as it’s ‘only a few spaces’ that have been taken away.

Richard Holman, who owns The Food Gallery, one of the businesses where the pavement-widening has been implemented, said that while the weather ‘hasn’t been great’ he thinks that the scheme is a benefit to the business.

“It’s a really good idea and if other cafes have felt the same then that’s brilliant.”

Town mayor Cllr Mark Cooper said: “The pavement widening has been implemented for five hospitality premises which opted into the scheme has, so far, been well-received by them.

“But we’ll be monitoring it all with Wiltshire Council and if it’s not working, we’ll have a rethink.

“We are hoping that this will give these businesses a helping hand.”

A total of 12 free car parking spaces have been lost because of the project. From tomorrow the council says it will offer six weeks of free parking at the George Lane car park on Fridays from 9.30am.