Seven missed opportunities to transform Hull’s gridlocked roads

When Talking Heads frontman David Byrne penned Road To Nowhere he probably wasn't thinking about Hull. However, the title of his band's biggest hit can certainly be applied to a clutch of ambitious road schemes in the city which, for one reason or another, failed to eventually materialise. Usually shelved because of a lack of money and, in one memorable case, too much water, they all could have changed the face of Hull as we know it today. Despite not going ahead, the legacy of some of the schemes can still be seen if you happen to know what you are looking for. In other locations, it's more a case of what might have been and, in the case of Hull's historic Old Town, what might have been lost had the town planners and highways engineers of yesterday got what they wanted. Read more: Residents' fury as council installs 'eyesore' bollards blocking parking to 'protect pedestrians' Here we look back at some of Hull's most infamous road to nowhere schemes. Boulevard Today a drive up Boulevard from Hessle Road eventually leads you to a maze of concrete pillars holding up the Anlaby Road flyover and a narrow curving road taking you underneath called Arnold Lane. It's an ignominious ending for a route originally designed to imitate the broad tree-lined streets of Paris. The original plan for a spacious public promenade linking the Humber to both Hessle Road and Anlaby Road was first laid out in 1870 by Joseph Fox Sharpe, the surveyor for Hull's Board of Health. His idea was to link up the rapidly expanding northern and western suburbs by building a grand thoroughfare which would also resolve drainage issues in the area. The Boulevard in west Hull Initially, it was viewed as the first phase of a Parisian-style ring road encircling the town centre before reaching the eastern bank of the Humber. Ultimately, the ring road never happened but its ambitious legacy can still be seen in Boulevard with its generous 80ft width and an eye-catching avenue of trees. Abercrombie & Lutyens The death of Sir Edwin Lutyens in 1944 ensured his fellow town planner Professor Patrick Ambercrombie's name became synonymous with the bold post-war plan published a year later mapping out how bomb-ravaged Hull night be re-built, featuring yet another ring road as well as a second railway station and a new satellite town at Burton Constable. The inner-city ring road proposed in the 1945 Abercrombie Plan with Wilberforce House in the background (Image: Hull City Council) Their idea was to construct an orbital box highway around the city centre, leaving Queens Gardens, the Old Town and the Paragon Street area as a re-designed traffic-free civic and shopping quarter within it. Most strikingly, it envisaged building one leg of the ring road along the course of High Street, leaving just a handful of historic buildings in the shadow of an elevated section. A lack of money and competing business interests ultimately conspired against the Abercrombie Plan although Freetown Way later broadly mirrored the northern section of its orbital road while the A63 also now reflects the southern route. Snuff Mill Lane There are some smashing views of countryside to take in either side of this evocatively-named ancient footway connecting Bricknell Avenue with Cottingham. However things might have been very different had plans for a road here actually gone ahead. The entrance to Snuff Mill Lane off Bricknell Avenue (Image: Hull Live) Today a raised embankment on one side of the lane near the Hull to Beverley railway line is the only clue to the proposed road. Covered in wild brambles and virtually inaccessible, it's actually made from the bricks and rubble removed from bomb-damaged houses during the Second World War. Back then, it was earmarked for a new road forming a by-pass to the south of Cottingham, taking traffic west from Bricknell Avenue eventually linking with what is now the A164 between Beverley and the Humber Bridge. Once more, it was never destined to happen. Spring Bank Set aside for possible road schemes that never see the light of day, so-called blighted land often offers a clue to what might have been. As case in point is an area between Spring Bank and Stanley Street now populated by a largely wild urban mini-forest of trees. Overgrown land off Spiring Bank was once earkmarked for the route of a new road (Image: Peter Harbour) Back in the days of Humberside County Council, the land formed part of a proposed new road linking Rawling Way and Anlaby Road to Princes Avenue at its busy junction with Spring Bank and Spring Bank West. Land ownership issues eventually sank the idea and the final nail in the coffin came when plans were given the go-ahead for a new Tesco store at the junction of Stanley Street and Spring Bank. The scheme's demise has left the Polar Bear pub marooned in splendid isolation, traffic still squeezed into narrow one-way Derringham Street and a splash of natural green on Spring Bank. Hotham Road North and South Until someone can tell me otherwise, I can only assume Hotham Road North and Hotham Road South were originally meant to meet up at some point. As it is, they probably form Hull's most unusual divided street. Hotham Road South, west Hull (Image: Hull Live) The North bit picks up just south of Bricknell Avenue, crosses over it and arrows in a straight to a junction with Cottingham Road. The South bit runs from Priory Road, across Wold Road and eventual
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