A PETITION has been launched against plans to close York’s Lendal Bridge to cars and motorbikes, and a former council leader has described the proposals as “badly timed and ill-considered”.

The proposals by Labour-run City of York Council have also provoked a furious debate on this website, with more than 230 comments posted – many fiercely critical, but with a minority strongly backing the scheme.

City leaders are proposing a traffic ban between 10.30am and 5pm every day for a six-month trial period, saying they want to make the city more appealing to pedestrians and help speed up public transport.

The e-petition, launched by York Conservatives and available on the council’s website, calls on the authority to rethink the plans and “stop the ensuing gridlock in York.”

A spokesman said the bridge’s closure would have a dire effect on pollution, traffic and business in York, with motorists forced to use three already busy and congested bridges over the Ouse – Clifton Bridge, Ouse Bridge and Skeldergate Bridge.

Liberal Democrat former council leader Steve Galloway has said that reducing the volume of traffic on the Lendal Bridge/St Leonards Place route is a “commendable objective”, but criticised the closure’s timing.

He said a detailed council report calculated the closure would lead to a 22 per cent increase in the number of vehicles using the York outer ring road bridge, an eight per cent increase on Clifton Bridge, 17 per cent on Ouse Bridge, 14 per cent on Skeldergate Bridge and five per cent on the A64, but it failed to indicate the additional delays caused.

“Nor does it tabulate the additional emissions which will be generated by longer journey lengths,” he said. “Several of the alternative routes already have air quality problems.”

He said the start date was several months before capacity improvements on the A1237 outer ring road were completed. “The A59 junction bottleneck won’t get its enlarged roundabout until spring 2014 (at the earliest). So what’s the hurry?”