Unfair to blame city council for lack of ring road

IT is somewhat unfair to place the blame for the lack of a decent Hull ring road on the city council (“City’s infrastructure inadequate amid huge increase in traffic” Mail Box, March 23).

The original plan was for a continuous road around the city, about 75 per cent within the city boundary and 25 per cent in the

East Riding.

The city’s portion was built in its entirety from Hedon Road to Inglemire Lane (plus Wymersley Road), including two railway bridges (over lines since closed) and the Sutton Road bridge over the River Hull.

The East Riding’s contribution was a pile of rubble south of Snuff Mill Lane which was intended to be part of a bridge over the Scarborough railway line.

When it became clear that the East Riding sections were never to be built, the city council had to improvise by using existing roads through west Hull in addition to building the County Road flyover.

As mentioned in the letter, the East Riding did propose to construct The Parkway linking Cottingham and Willerby.

This was to give a unifying feature to the Haltemprice Urban District local authority which was specifically created as a bulwark against any possible extension of Hull’s western boundary.

It was so called because all its constituent settlements could agree on the name as it did not mention any of them. It has, however, since been realised that the introduction of heavy traffic to two quiet residential streets may not be a bright idea politically.

An alternative could be the extension of Greenwood Avenue westwards to the A164, providing a southerly by pass for Cottingham and using the aforementioned pile of rubble.