Mayor has mountains to move before red carpet for the car rolls

What happens when a politician tries to reverse a town’s pro-public transport policies and give space back to the car? Doncaster’s elected mayor Peter Davies is attempting to do just that. But, as he explains to Andrew Forster, it isn’t all plain sailing.

Andrew Forster

14 March 2011

An oasis of calm: Doncaster’s North Bridge, adjacent to the town centre, is currently only open to buses, taxis and private hire vehicles. Davies wants to open it up to general traffic outbound

Buses pass along Cleveland Street

He also wants to remove bus lanes from the A638

As Peter Davies grapples with delivering his goal of “opening up Doncaster to the car” he can probably empathise with how generations of the town’s menfolk must have felt at the end of a shift down their local pit. Boy, it’s hard work!

“There is still a very heavy pressure group that is anti-car in Doncaster, which even the elected mayor has got to move mountains to change,” he says.

Giving motorists more priority is at odds with most of the rhetoric in the...