Here you see my son, running with wild excitement, across the busiest road in Bradford-on-Avon. Today, as part of the town’s week-long Arts Festival, this street - Market Street - was closed to traffic. In the early hours of the morning, a group of volunteers turfed it in the pouring rain. As the sunshine dried up the turf not long after breakfast, Barney and I walked down and stared in wonder. Later, some sheep arrived, along with a Little Bo Peep and lots of other curious townspeople. I took plenty of pictures.

This is a much bigger deal than you might think. Bradford, lovely as it is, has its problems, and the main one is traffic through its centre. Some people advocate a new one-way system to improve things, others say a bypass is the only solution. Others argue the status quo, imperfect as it may be, is best kept in situ.

The mere fact that this street, the main traffic route through the centre of the town, was closed to traffic for a day is a considerable achievement. I’m not sure what the best solution is for Bradford’s problems, but this simple demonstration of how a street can be transformed into a lively, exciting, sociable environment for people, rather than for cars and commerce, was also a powerful one.