Emergency city roadworks ‘a chance to put things right’

The current work to fix Hereford’s Blueschool Street is a chance to put right a historical “travesty”, according to a leading figure in the city’s conservation.

The dual carriageway stretch, part of the city’s A438 inner ring road, has been closed since last week after the surface was found to have dipped dangerously.

Jeremy Milln, a councillor for the city centre after a career in cultural heritage, and chairman of Hereford Civic Society, said the road was built in the 1960s over the historic city ditch alongside the adjacent city wall.

“I am almost certain there is an inadequate sub-base, so it’s collapsing into the silt of the ditch,” he said.

But the current Blueschool Street “is a travesty, a heavily trafficked motorway in the middle of the historic city”, and not restricted to 20mph as Newmarket Street, the stretch of the A438 further west, is, he said.

The ditch, together with the city wall, comprise a scheduled ancient monument, “so we shouldn’t be driving over it”, he added. “We should have learned from our mistake here, as other towns and cities have.”

Indeed the previous Conservative county administration backed a plan over a decade ago to turn Blueschool Street into a single-lane, pedestrian-friendly “tree-lined boulevard” as part of a £40-million government-funded package of transport improvements to the area.

But when the new City Link Road running west from the railway station consumed all the funding, the council “welched” on its other plans, Mr Milln said.

Professor Keith Ray of Cardiff University, former county archaeologist for Herefordshire, said that while the city ditch “is broadly on the course of the inner ring road”, before the 1960s work “there were lots of buildings right up against the outside of the medieval city wall” – which could lead to residual problems such as old cellars not fully filled in.

But a Herefordshire Council spokesperson said investigations by highways officers and contractors “found the underlying material to be solid and in good condition, with no voids”.

The work has provided an opportunity carry out other work on the stretch, including drainage improvements, removing vegetation from the city wall and installing a new kerb.

“This will allow the carriageway to be built-up to a more even level before surfacing works are completed next week,” the spokesperson said.