Sheffield City Council has approved plans to have enforcement hours for the Hillsborough tram gates cut to peak times for a trial period.

The council’s west and north planning and highways board met on Tuesday, and agreed that the tram gates would only operate between 7am and 11am, and between 3pm and 7pm Mondays to Saturdays, compared with 7am to 7pm currently.

A spokeswoman for the council said: ‘An experimental traffic order will be put in place next year and will be reviewed at three, six and 12 months.’

The move follows a report into the times of operation of the tram gates, which restrict traffic around Hillsborough Corner.

Relaxing restrictions would increase traffic and could lead to more accidents on Langsett Road and Middlewood Road, the report stated.

However, officers argued this would be ‘counterbalanced by reduced flows and accidents on surrounding roads’ which were narrower and not built to take large amounts of traffic. The trial is due to start in September 2009.