THE traffic problems caused at the southern end of Worcester’s City Walls Road at its junction with Sidbury have been well documented – and judging by the tailbacks caused at the start of this week by “clearing up” operations, they may not be over yet – but the mess has been as nothing compared with the carnage when the highway was built in the first place.

That was back in the mid-1970s the days when Hereford-Worcester County Council was the highways authority, and there was stiff opposition to the plans for a dual carriageway route so close to the city centre. Indeed, Worcester Civic Society organised a conference of local organisations ranged against the scheme. There were eight of them, including Worcester Chamber of Commerce, Worcester Trades Council, Worcestershire Architects’ Society and even the Soroptimists.

The general consensus seemed to be that if a road had to be built it should only be single carriageway, which would leave more room for extra car parking, better landscaping and the provision of a walk along the top of the old city walls and at the rear of the timber framed properties in Friar Street and New Street. The Civic Society maintained that to be built dual carriageway, City Walls Road would be “a disaster”. Fortunately that proved not to be the case.

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Clearing work on the half-mile road, which stretched from Lowesmoor to Sidbury through the city’s old poor quarter in the Blockhouse, had begun back in 1968 and eventually several hundred yards of the 13th-century city wall were exposed and excavated with help from archaeologists. In those days the cost was set at £700,000, but eight years later when the wrangle over the highway’s width broke out it had shot up to £2 million.

There was a nice little touch when the City Walls Road eventually opened in February 1977. Local highways officials decided that in the tight economic climate of the day a VIP ceremony could not be justified. Now there’s a surprise. Until, that was, workmen on the project got to hear the news.

As the road’s resident engineer Paddy Fenn explained: “The men felt there should be an opening ceremony and we thought the right man for the job would be Bill Mann. He has visited the site come rain or shine to watch its progress ever since the first digger moved in. We regard him as our mascot.”

So they set up an impromptu white ribbon and 84-year-old Bill, who lived at the other end of town in Raglan Street, Barbourne, performed the cutting to declare the City Walls Road officially open.

He was then driven down the length of the road in a worker’s car. Bill’s parents were servants to Queen Victoria and as a boy he lived in Buckingham Palace. What better credentials for an opening ceremony?