LAST night at 11pm, for the second weekend in a row, traffic was stopped from going through the Lower Pollet. The same will happen again tonight and over the next two weekends.

The result, depending on your point of view, is either a welcome boost for health and safety or a retrograde submission to the forces of drunkenness and stupidity.

It is the classic Guernsey clash. While both sides have valid points of view, only one can win the day.

For their part, the police fear that groups of young clubbers gathering outside Fusion nightclub’s exit in the Truchot risk being run down by passing cars.

The solution is to move the club entrance to the Lower Pollet where, in a pedestrian zone, customers can emerge into safety.

That has been supported by some businesses in the area, but has appalled others who rely on taxis being able to pick up and drop off older guests at their door.

Those guests, emerging from a relaxing meal in a restaurant, will not all be happy to run a gauntlet of smart-mouthed clubbers before they can get to the taxi rank.

Residents, too, are unhappy that the street, already a noisy one, will become a gathering place for a drunken, shouting crowd.

The answer to both points must be good policing.

If the force wants the trial to become permanent it must play its part by ensuring that the area has a very visible long-term police presence.

Rather than a no-go zone avoided by all but the most adventurous, the Lower Pollet must be seen as a safe haven for clubbers, pubbers and restaurant diners.

With strict policing, those who cannot behave would learn that the area is the last place they want to go.

If that cannot be achieved then the experiment will have proved a failure and another solution to the Truchot exit must be found. After all, would it be so difficult to police the Lower Pollet so that taxi drivers are allowed through without fear of a drunk veering into the road?