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A group of agencies including police and local councils made an inspection tour of Haverhill town centre yesterday (Monday), looking at ways it could be improved.

With the Tesco development and the new works in Queen Street, representatives from Suffolk County Council highways, Haverhill Town Council, Haverhill police met the town centre manager Tina Hanks to come up with some ideas to tidy up the high street as well.

The police beat officer with responsibility for the town centre, PC Rupert Beynon, said afterwards all had agreed the best long-term way forward would be to pedestrianise the street completely from Quakers Lane upwards.

However, in the more immediate future they looked at more cosmetic measures, such as replacing old street furniture and removing old, irrelevant signs.

They also explored ways of making the town centre more 'friendly' by improving the signage leading into it so that motorists and delivery lorries did not end up in cul-de-sacs or one-way systems they didn't want.

PC Beynon said the issue of traffic and cars parked illegally in the street was raised again, especially as there is no longer a traffic warden.

"You can never stop it completely without a physical barrier," he said.

He said the public had higher priorities they wanted the police to be dealing with than acting as traffic wardens, although he admitted he and his colleagues did issue warning notices on illegally parked cars.

"We considered whether we should be looking at other places where the councils have taken parking issues over from the police service," he said.

Kevin Shipp of Suffolk County Council highways department took the ideas which came up at the meeting away for further investigation.