Standing beside his Chapel Street restaurant, Mourad Mohsiine gazed at a traffic jam on Tuesday (May 13).
The queue was moving at a snail’s pace. It was like this on Monday afternoon, and every midweek home time rush hour last week. And the 42-year-old believes his Moroccan eatery Fez Tajine is ‘suffering’ because of it.
“This is the first week and we’ve already seen signs of it affecting the business,” he explained. “We rely on passing trade and people coming from different places. Chapel Walks and Chapel Street is the heart of this area.”
At the moment, the heart of the area is covered in roadworks causing ‘hour long’ jams for buses, deliveries, emergency services, and motorists.
The cones and the closure arrived last week (May 6) to allow workers to build more space for buses, extra room for pedestrians, and new bike lanes. It will be in place until next April.
Salford council has apologised for the disruption, and insisted shutting Chapel Street eastbound, away from town, ‘remains the safest, most efficient option to complete the works, balancing the needs of residents, businesses, pedestrians, cyclists, and public transport in a constrained city centre environment’.
But Mourad, and other businesses on Chapel Street, say the scheme is driving people away, affecting deliveries, and compromising the quality of their products.
The restaurateur continued: “What we’re trying to do is bring a bit of life to this side of Salford. It used to be that no-one wanted anything to do with this area but with these businesses there’s a bit of life on this street.
“We are already suffering from a lot of things as a business – people can’t afford to go out as much as they used to be able to. It’s really tough at the moment for a new business. We need a reward or some kind of support for this.”
Next door, Matt McGuire runs the F45 gym. His review of the situation is short: “It’s s***, it’s shocking.”
He goes on: “It’s really doing me no favours. My classes tend to be at peak times – before and after work – and people can’t turn up. At this class I’ve got now, I’ve got about four people missing and I’m losing money.”
Like Matt and Mourad, Ramadan Nashnush is seeing clients drop off as they avoid the area.
While people can go to Fez Tajine and F45 without using a car, Ramadan’s customers can’t, as he runs Nash’s garage which does MOTs, servicing, and bodywork repairs.
The 53-year-old explained how it affected him: “People are thinking they cannot come in. Why are they closing it?
“It’s one year. It’s killing business. We need to pay tax and rent. Why this? It’s not good.”
Ramadan was speaking at 11am on Tuesday, when the traffic had dissipated. But ‘three appointments cancelled’ that morning, so he ‘lost money’.
However, not every firm is suffering. The manager of Black Lion pub, Josh, said he hasn’t noticed an impact.
“I do not think this has affected us,” he said. “The people who come in just want a drink, whenever sport is on people just want two.”
That being said, there are firms here which go to customers directly, rather than welcoming them in. For them it’s been a difficult week.
Omer Kula, 40, is the manager of Ohannes burger bar on Chapel Street. He outlined how it ‘affected us’: “It’s affecting the delivery drivers, they cannot reach the shop in time, so it’s affecting the order quality. We’ve been here two years, it’s not been easy. This is not good.”
Sophie Smith, 23, works at estate agents The Property Place, where staff have to do multiple viewings — sometimes as far away as Preston or Leeds.
“I live in Eccles and it’s normally 15 minutes to get home, now it’s an hour,” she added. “We look forward to the school holidays, but we will not be this year because it’s no different.”
And as Sophie pointed out, it’s not just drivers and businesses who have been hurt. ‘The buses would still be stuck’, she said after one photo showing 40 gridlocked last Thursday as Manchester United played at Old Trafford, also closing other arterial roads nearby.
In response to the complaints, Councillor Mike McCusker, lead member for planning, transport and sustainable development, said: “Salford City Council have planned the works on Chapel Street carefully, and as part of that process all partners have considered and explored a number of options to maintain traffic flows in the city centre.
“This was in partnership with Manchester City Council and Transport for Greater Manchester.
“The current one-way closure remains the safest, most efficient option to complete the works, balancing the needs of residents, businesses, pedestrians, cyclists, and public transport in a constrained city centre environment.
“The one-way closure extends over approximately 400 meters of the city centre road network. While roadworks can impact disruption to traffic flow, the periods of increased congestion and delays are primarily due to the overall capacity of the network being affected by a combination of incidents, popular events, and high vehicle volumes, rather than solely by the temporary roadworks.”
