• Swindon & Wiltshire Economy
• Tuesday July 15 2025

Lord Mayor cuts the ribbon on Clifton’s new-look Princess Victoria Street

Residents, visitors and businesses have celebrated the completion of work to transform one of Clifton’s most popular high streets into a pedestrian-friendly zone.

Princess Victoria Street, located between Regent Street and Waterloo Street, has been traffic free in the daytime since August 2021 when temporary measures were brought in with daily timed road closures.

The measures provided the area with a new, traffic-free lease of life from 11am to 5pm and the street’s popular hospitality businesses with extra space for outdoor tables and chairs.

Following further engagement with local businesses, work to replace these measures with permanent materials began in January 2025.

The permanent work included:

• Creating a raised level surface with natural stone paving
• Installing a strip of tactile paving to differentiate between the road and the pavements
• Replacing the temporary parklet with permanent materials, including bench seating
• Adding new planters and landscaping the area
• Maintaining space for café seating
• Installing more cycle parking
• Replacing the bollards at either end of the road closure with gates to prevent motorised vehicles from entering during the timed closure, which has been extended by two hours and is now from 11am to 7pm

Organised by the Clifton Village BID and local ward councillor Paula O’Rourke, with funding from the project’s cultural activation fund, the Grand Opening event was also attended by Bristol’s Lord Mayor, Councillor Henry Michallat, and the chair of the transport and connectivity committee, Cllr Ed Plowden.

“It was a great day celebrating the completion of these works that marks an exciting next step towards making Bristol a safer, greener and more pleasant city to spend time in and travel around,” said Cllr Plowden.

“There is no doubt that these works will have a huge impact on the area. By creating a traffic-free zone in the day, it means people can walk, wheel, cycle and spread out across the whole road, which is now looking very smart and greener than ever with all the new planting.

Cllr O’Rourke added: “I am delighted that the street now looks so inviting. Now that people can shop online, we need to offer something quite special to entice people onto the high street, and I think that is what we have done. The footfall has increased and it’s great to see the shops and restaurants thriving.

“It is so much nicer to have a space for people to enjoy some leisure and have better access to shops and services, rather than have to negotiate the parked cars and those circling looking for a parking space. Instead of that, we now have trees, flowers and benches for relaxation.”