Anthony Fyson, Chair, Dartmouth Community Bookshop, of Higher Street, Dartmouth, writes:

The Smith Street frontage of the fire site is at last free of scaffolding. This longed-for progress allows commercial premises near the junction with Higher Street to consider how best to recover from two years of lost or diminished trade.

But no such relief is yet available to those trying to run the four businesses a few metres further south, obscured behind the huge structure still supporting the façade of the historic building at 5 Higher Street.

In fact even more 'footfall obstruction' has recently been inflicted on those enterprises in the form of scaffolding on the old bookshop premises, which severely impedes the vital access up the steps from Lower Street.

There might, however, be a happy outcome to this nightmare if the relevant authorities were prepared to support the 'new localism' and encourage some locally-led neighbourhood planning.

As has happened elsewhere when major disasters have disrupted urban life, the resultant temporary re-arrangements have revealed unexpected improvement potential, especially for traffic management.

When it comes to re-establishing a permanent traffic system, the route round St Saviours Church and along Anzac Street will probably have to revert to one-way working, for the safety of both pedestrians and vehicles. Similarly, Smith Street has to re-open as a two-way street to give access to and from Lower Street from Crowthers Hill and its tributary roads.

But in the case of the old turn out of Smith Street into Higher Street, it has become apparent that there is no real need for vehicles to be able to drive south past the fire site as they used to.

This wide northern end of Higher Street could be a traffic-free, fully paved, new square providing an attractive urban space with new seats, lights and planting.

When No 5 is finished it could be precisely the kind of new 'character area' that shopping guru Mary Portas and now the government are calling for as one means of sustaining small independent shops.

A very few awkward parking spaces would be lost, but might be regained further along Higher Street, and there could be delivery vehicle access at certain times or into special bays.

There is a wonderful historical precedent for such a plan. Ray Freeman tells us in the definitive Dartmouth history that the area was once the commercial heart of Clifton – a small medieval square surrounded by prestigious dwellings and containing 'a market, breweries, bakers, butchers and craftsmen'. William Henley's celebrated drawing recreates the scene - including an occupied pillory, which Freeman calls a 'warning to dishonest tradesmen'.

Nothing would revive the area better than its renewal as 'Pillory Square'. A replica pillory could be erected, complete with an explanatory information panel.

Pillory Square traders should attract new customers through this scheme, eventually perhaps as part of a well signposted promotional network of other special Dartmouth localities.

The pillory would presumably have to remain non-functional, tempting though the alternative might be.