UPDATE FEBRUARY 2020

 

No change on previous posts – there are still some incidents – HCS remains of the opinion that the poor juxtaposition of different materials is probably not helpful. This is a great shame as Ben Hamilton Baillie,(BHB) the great promoter of Shared Space designed many excellent schemes; not least the impressive Poynton scheme and the Hereford Street Scape Design report in 2009. BHB died in 2019

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UPDATE MAY 2018

Tripping on the shallow kerbs still occurs and is a design fault we fear. Our magazine WINTER 2017/18 page 3 suggests that confusing placing of different materials may be the cause.

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UPDATE AUTUMN 2014

What's the issue?

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Improvements to this street were planned in 2009 and the details were displayed for public comment at an exhibition in a public bar in Widemarsh Street later that year.



Work started early in 2010 and was completed shortly before Christmas of that year.



Before the work was half completed, it became clear that the shallow sinuous kerbs, built in places to follow the pattern of the design were a hazard to the public.



In July 2010, following several incidents of falls and tripping resulting in injury to several members of the public, Hereford Civic Society wrote to Herefordshire Council expressing the view that the kerbs already built should be removed and the remainder of the work completed all on one level as in High Town and Eign Gate, without these shallow kerbs.



In their official reply, the Council stated that the design of the street works was not responsible for tripping incidents and that it was not necessary to modify it.  In one Council letter "looking in shop windows" was quoted as one possible cause of the falls.