An open meeting convened by the North Jesmond Liberal Democrat councillors to discuss the future of Acorn Road went ahead last night, with around 70 people in attendance, despite some residents writing an open letter asking for it to be postponed or cancelled.

According to Cllr Peter Breakey, who called the meeting at St George’s Church last night, the discussion went well. The issue of the future of Acorn Road was discussed by around 50 people who turned up to the meeting, with no single option favoured by a consensus.

A Let’s Talk Newcastle consultation on the future of the popular Jesmond shopping street has proposed two options which could attain up to £350,000 of funding from the Cycling City Ambition Fund, a government pot of money to promote cycle-friendly shopping areas. According to Cllr Breakey, strong representations were made in support of no change, option 1 and option 2.

View slides from the public meeting

Two PowerPoint presentations (the first viewable here; the second here) given by Cllr Breakey at the meeting last night show he is in favour of option 2, which would retain the current two-way road system, but improve pedestrian crossing at road junctions by raising it to the level of pavements.

“Option 2 is the most sensible way forward provided that the number of parking spaces can be increased and careful attention is paid to improving the look of the road,” Breakey wrote. “Any plans for a one way system have to plan for the whole affected area, not just a single street. Option 1 completely fails to do this.”

No vote was taken at the meeting, the aim of which was to discuss the road’s future. Concurrent with the meeting, Let’s Talk Newcastle has been holding street consultation sessions at a gazebo on the corner of Larkspur Street and Acorn Road to discuss plans, the final meeting of which is today, Thursday September 11th, from 4pm-8pm.

Editor’s note: This post was updated at 2:15pm on September 11 2014 with a more accurate estimate of attendance at the September 10th meeting