The NSW Government granted Lismore City Council a $510,000 grant to revitalise the CBD laneways including Eggins Lane, County Lane and the lower part of Carrington Street near Cafe Capello.

Recently a number of workshops have been undertaken with a consultancy firm which included business owners and managers to brainstorm and discuss possible laneway outcomes and hear any concerns about the daily operations of their businesses.

Traffic Flow is one of the major issues for business owners so delivery trucks can service their stores for much needed stock. This will be discussed at tonight's Council meeting in the Traffic Advisory Meeting Minutes held on October 21.

The minutes say that one of the proposed elements of the concept design is to temporarily close the lower part of Carrington Street for through traffic for three (3) months to give some vehicular space back to the public. Service delivery vehicles would delivering outside of peak times.

This is where design and functionality clash.

The design concept for the CBD laneways looks impressive. The artist impressions show permanent streetscape improvements, fixed furniture and planters, umbrellas, green walls with decorative and edible plants, increased lighting, a catenary (cable) system overhead, that lights and artwork can hang from, and artistic markings on the road to show you around the laneways. It is pretty impressive on paper.

The functional side is that delivery trucks need regular access to business doors backing onto Eggins Lane to receive their goods on a daily basis. Stores like Daleys Homeware & Monogramming, Shoppe One and The Bookwarehouse have small and large trucks entering Carrington Street and either driving down Eggins Lane or County Lane before making their stop.

Sarah Ryan Manager of the BookWarehouse, Matthew Healey from Daleys and Graeme Palmer from Shoppe One all agree that the overall idea to revitalise the laneways has merit, they are for it in principal, however it cannot interfere with the daily running of their businesses.

"We need access for our delivery trucks," Sarah Ryan said, "we get deliveries all throughout the day from a few boxes to two or three pallets which is when we see the larger Pantec trucks in Eggins Lane."

Graeme Palmer said it is not just the delivery trucks but Eggins Lane is where a lot of staff park their cars so they need access during peak times.

"There has been talk of shop owners setting up shop at the rear of our stores to sell to people in Eggins Lane as well as the Keen Street entrance which is good in theory but it means more cost because we have to hire more staff," Graeme added.

Matthew Healey said "I am supportive of the concept. I actually think that if we can improve our laneway and make them more liveable I think it's a good thing for Lismore."

(Artist impression of Eggins Lane near the Embassy Arcade)

"However the most important thing for this project and what people need to realise is that they are working laneways, they are not abandoned spaces which nobody uses."

"I have several deliveries everyday coming to my loading docks and some of them are so big they struggle to turn the corner to get back onto Keen Street," Matthew added.

This is the juxtaposition of the CBD Laneways.

It is a little bit like Steve Jobs at Apple when he put design over functionality, it caused no end of drama for his engineers that ended in massive budget blowouts. However, it did lead to some pretty amazing pieces of technology that we use everyday and the Lismore App is based on.

As the project progresses we will no doubt learn more about how two worlds combine for the enhancement of the Lismore CBD laneways.