So intu is having another go - they just will not give up on their plan to put doors across the pedestrianised section of Queens Road.

A minor inconvenience, one might think, for those who just want to get from High Street towards the Queens Road shops. A much greater inconvenience for the cyclists, who use this route through the town centre to Junction Station, or for those who want to ride from the town centre to the Gladstone Road or Radlett Road areas.

And yes, many of them ride straight through where Queens Road crosses the intu, even though, technically, this is a public footpath, although almost always without the slightest incident.

I think that the salient issue is this: Since the ring road was built, cyclists who wish to get into the town centre have been squeezed onto a very small number of streets.

Some routes disappeared altogether - Loates Lane springs to mind - and a number of those that remained were made one-way (King Street, Market Street and the shopping or ‘Broadway’ section of Queens Road).

Other routes, such as Clarendon Road, are just too busy to be ridden by some cyclists who lack confidence in traffic.

And as for the ring road itself, it’s pretty much a cyclists’ no-go zone, except for a brave few.

On a bike, Watford starts to have a different geography from the one that motorists experience.

And now intu wants to close off Queens Road as a convenient route?

And this after the old Watford Market was displaced onto The Parade, turning the latter into a veritable obstacle-course of market stalls and ‘street-food’ vendors.

As the major actor in central Watford’s evolution, intu has a lot of influence.

I believe it is a well-liked feature of our town. I too value the place, especially on winter evenings, when it’s freezing outside.

And it’s got a good location in the centre of Watford, not stuck out in some out-of-town location.

But regarding the doors across Queens Road, I think the answer has to be “Sorry, intu; you’re now a huge chunk of Watford town centre, but remember it’s our town too.

Clive Jones

Sheraton Mews Watford