Roads can be for people not cars, states the United Kingdom's government lockdown guidance

The United Kingdom's Department for Transport (DfT) has loosened its rules to enable roads to be closed to motor traffic and given over to pedestrians and cyclists during the duration of the COVID-19 lockdown. Typically, any change of use for roads in England had to be enabled by local authorities issuing “Traffic Regulation Orders”—these usually take time to implement, have to be publicized through paid-for advertisements in local newspapers and by on-site notices. They can be stymied by objections. The looser rules—announced on April 16—are “withdrawn once conditions allow,” states the DfT. The DfT’s rule loosening gives local authorities the power to quickly and easily make roads car-free, widen footways, or install temporary cycle lanes. The new guidance on Traffic Regulation Orders (TROs) “has been produced in response to concerns about the ability of traffic authorities to implement the publicity requirements when making permanent or temporary TROs during the current crisis." For the duration of the lockdown local authorities will no longer have to go through a time-consuming and often fractious process to close roads to motor traffic—they will be able to impose emergency TROs with a minimum of advance notice and little recourse to objections.