There was a time when London Road vied with Western Road for being the top shopping area in Brighton. Not anymore. While millions flock to the new Churchill Square arcade every year, trade is well-down half a mile to the north.

Traders blame the new London Road traffic management scheme, claiming it discourages people from visiting their shops. They may or may not be correct in their assumption but I fancy other, bigger factors are at work.

What the traffic scheme has done is to make conditions more pleasant for the shoppers. And while traders always seem to think all their customers arrive by car, in London Road a lot travel there on foot or by bus.

More still needs to be done, for while most southbound traffic has been taken out of the street, the northbound lane still remains a canyon full of fumes and noise. The sooner this can be routed away from the shops the better.

Once that has been done, it might be possible to widen pavements in London Road, put in more landscaping, and provide the atmosphere that has been conspicuously lacking for many years.

That might encourage some of the big names to come back. After all, London Road once boasted a Marks and Spencer store and a full-sized Woolworth's. A few more chain stores might persuade many people from the north of Brighton and beyond to stop there rather than ploughing on through the traffic into Churchill Square.

The Co-Op department store has been the backbone of London Road and has been improved over the years, but a revitalised street scene might give its owners the confidence to go ahead with a multi-million pound refit.

There are other improvements that could make London Road much more welcoming than it is now. The first is a revamp of the Open Market and this is being looked at now following an initiative by local Green councillors.

It's provided a good service for local people over the years but it really is pretty shabby and outdated now. Enclosing it and building a few good new shops on the frontage would make no end of difference and it could then become a tourist attraction as well.

The other and much more controversial improvement is to the Brighton Station site to the east of the main shopping area. Successive schemes for this important brownfield site have foundered, the last being for a new Sainsbury's, housing and industry.

Currently a consortium which encouragingly includes the land owners, Railtrack, has put forward new ideas for the sites including housing and a hotel in the concept of an urban village. The consortium is only too aware of the need to regenerate London Road as a whole. It's been largely welcomed apart from one sticking point - plans for a smaller Sainsbury's store.

Brighton and Hove Council will have to decide whether or not to include the store. If it does not, the council will have to allow another high-income generator for, without doubt, this will be an extremely expensive site to redevelop.

Whatever happens, this site must be linked to London Road so that the vitality it produces can spread into the nearby shopping street. It's a big site which should have a big and largely beneficial effect on a part of Brighton that's been down at heel for too long.

As one who remembers London Road in its prime, I'd be delighted to see it look even better in a few years' time.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.