The east side tram line will run from the station to the far end of Harbour Road, with eleven stops on the way. On a map it is a straight line. On foot, over two days, it turned out to be a string of very different streets, each with its own idea of what the tram will do to it.
From the station to Quay Street
The first stops are the easy ones. The station forecourt already has the space, and traders on Quay Street have asked for a stop at the end of the road since the night market moved there. 'If it stops here in the evening, we will see people from the whole town,' says one stallholder.
The two closed roads
Beyond the river the line takes over two residential streets, Alder Row and Coopers Lane, which will close to through traffic while the track goes in and stay closed to cars afterwards. Residents we spoke to are split. Some like the idea of a quiet street with a tram at the end of it; others worry about deliveries, carers and where the parking goes. The stop outside the secondary school is the one change almost everyone welcomes: the school run on Harbour Road is a daily jam.
A depot nobody asked for
The trams will sleep in a new depot on the old gasworks site. It did not appear in the first consultation, and neighbours on Gasworks Terrace found out from a planning notice tied to a lamp post. The council says the site was the only one large enough. Neighbours say they would have liked to be asked before the drawings were finished.
What happens next
The council has opened a second round of consultation on the depot and the closed roads, and the planning committee will decide on both before work starts. We will follow the line as it is built, stop by stop.