SHOPPERS and motorists will no longer be separated once council work to make a road in the town centre safer is finished.

A raised area is being installed in Farnsby Street which will bring the road up to the same level as the pavement once it is completed in the middle of April.

It is part of work costing £400,000 to fill in the subway that tunnels under Farnsby Street after a report in 2006 recommended that its closure would help curb anti-social behaviour.

Project manager Liz Baldwin said the developments, known as shared space, will warn motorists to slow down.

“It warns motorists coming in to the area where pedestrians will be because they will go up a ramp which will warn them they are going into an area of uncertainty.

“It means the road is at pavement level. It will be a bit like when you have a dropped kerb,” she said.

The area will have encouraged crossing points and tactile paving but no controlled pelican crossing.

“There is a crossing at the bottom end of Farnsby Street and one at the top end so we were reluctant to put a crossing in there because there would be three in about 300 metres,” she said.

The work also includes narrowing Farnsby Street from three lanes into two at the end near Faringdon Road, and adding a curve into the road to slow down traffic.

Work started on January 10 and has seen lane closures while developments takes place but the road will need to be closed while the raised table is installed, but that is likely to be overnight towards the end of the project.

The subway report back in 2006 scored all the subways across the town based on anti-social behaviour and complaints.

Subways in Kirby Close in Queens Drive and St Michaels Avenue in Highworth were also recommended to close but both are still in use.

The subway in Farnsby Street was closed first as it was also coming to the end of its service life and it would have cost millions to upgrade or replace it.