C Morton of Dormington Drive, Hereford, asks does our council never learn, pristine look will not last very long in Broad Street (From Hereford Times)

C Morton of Dormington Drive, Hereford, asks does our council never learn, pristine look will not last very long in Broad Street

3:00pm Friday 15th June 2012 in Letters

IF money must be spent on yet another prestige road “refurbishment”, rather than filling in the disastrous potholes that now abound in the city and make life a daily hazard for drivers, why can it not be spent in putting right the dangerously varying kerb heights in Widemarsh Street?

And preferably before the Three Choirs Festival brings more unsuspecting victims to their inevitable accident.

It beggars belief that Hamilton- Baillie, already responsible for the dangerous nonsense in Widemarsh Street without doing anything to put it right, should have been awarded the contract to repeat its nonsense in Broad Street.

Bridge Street, King Street, Church Street, East Street and St Owen Street appear to have been awarded to them too. This is ridiculous.

Hamilton-Baillie’s statement about Broad Street talks of giving “greater space for pedestrian and cycle movements, and for space associated with the trading and activities between the Cathedral and High Town”, and then talks of reducing on-street parking in town in favour of edge-of-town parking.

Broad Street is call Broad Street because it is broad. It naturally has plenty of space for cyclists and pedestrians and other activities, and even more if buses are not routed through it.

Has Hamilton-Baillie even looked at existing trading and activities in Broad Street and the charges in the car parks nearest to it?

As well as shops, offices and banks the street contains two churches, a cathedral and restaurants, all requiring two hour parking, which is desperately limited already.

Upwards of 250 people seek Sunday morning parking and people need to visit their bank.

Many of these people, while not officially disabled, would have difficulty walking any great distance, and surely few people will bother to use a city centre restaurant if the nearest parking is out on the edge of town? They will go to somewhere where free parking is provided.

Is the long-term intention to close these businesses and churches and create a dead boulevard?

There is very little wrong with the appearance of Broad Street as it is. It is not likely to be enhanced for more than a few hours by the pale pavements shown in Hamilton-Baillie’s picture: disfigurement by chewing-gum will be instant.

And those white kerbs look suspiciously like the Widemarsh Street death traps too.

Does our council never learn?

Why not put this unnecessary project on very very long-term hold, and in the meanwhile really think about what is needed by the people it represents?

C MORTON, Dormington Drive, Hereford.