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Updated Friday 13th April 2007
Hertford's Worst Planning Decisions
Nominate your architectural eyesore or town planning travesty.
Following on from last year's "Worst Maintenance" feature, we're asking you to send in your comments on what you think are the worst planning decisions made in the town. It could be a road, a building or some other scheme that has had a detrimental effect on the town.
For many people, the relief road driven through the town in the sixties might be a shining example of town planning tomfoolery. Others might baulk at bulk of Stag House, an unwelcome landmark on the A414 through town.
 What do YOU think is a blot on the landscape?
Send us your nomination using the form below. If you have a photo showing the problem you can email it to us at badplanning@hertford.net.
Selected comment and photos will be featured on this page as nominations are received, together with a summary of the results when available.
Add your nomination
Your Comments
A414 cutting town in half instead of routing around!.
Lindsay
The decision not to have any road access through to the Mead Lane Industrial Estate. Because of this, loads of large lorries have to go along the Ware Road (into the town centre), only to then have to turn right at Tesco's to effectively go OUT of the town to Marsh Lane. If this was resolved, then it would reduce a lot of the traffic that clogs up the east side of Hertford.
Ian
I nominate Bircherley Green. I remember when it was the Bus Station and actually had space to have buses use it! The size of shops is not that large and car parking is a nightmare. The public toilets a disgrace and generally ugly... !
Kate
I would like to nominate that A414/Gascoyne Way, which cuts through our town in quite spectacular fashion. It snarls up our town every rush hour without fail and had some buildings and roads destroyed to make it. It is also a danger and forces us to use subways or the only crossing to get into our town.
Jo
That ridiculous place that replaced Ebeneezer's chapel on North Road opposite Waters. An eyesore of the highest order!
Lee
Turning Parliament Square into a T Junction, it worked much better as a roundabout and the war memorial was treated with much more respect than it is now. I am sure the bus drivers preferred it as well!
Marilyn
Without any doubt I nominate the road 'improvements' around the parade of shops on the Sele Farm Estate... all we need now is a drive through 'Big Mac' on the green.
Gary
I would have to say the car park on Gascoyne way as being a main 'ugly feature' of Hertford. Especially as when people drive through, that is one of their first impressions of the town!
Will
A414 through the town and the Gascoyne Way multistorey car park - it's an eyesore.
Katie
Tesco. Not so much for the fact that they were allowed to open the store in the town but for what was destroyed to enable it. The anonymous overground bomb shelter styled carbuncle opposite Stag House, on the same side as All Saints Church. Castle Hall. What is the point of that roof?
The A414 'bypass'. Archers Spring - a debacle - I drove along the road daily and it was clear that the site was being used for gravel extraction, yet the councillors would regularly voice in the Mercury that it was merely being prepared for a shiny new sports centre. Reading through my list again the A414 comes out on top.
Chris
The car park on Gascoyne way is so ugly! Everybody I know comments on how ugly it looks. Not a good impression of Hertford on arrival! Enfield had a big car park build recently - much better & acceptable!
Aska
The hideously ugly multi-storey car park - totally obscures one side of the town. Pull it down.
Simon P
The relief road was the very worst planning ever implimented in Hertford. All others pale by comparision. It did nothing for congestion and ruined the appeal of much of the Town as an integrated centre.
Ray
Newland Gardens
Jan
The Marquee shopping arcade. What is the point of a shopping arcade on the edge of the town centre with no useful shops?
Simon C
The A414 must win hands down. Not only what was destroyed to build the road, but the hideous buildings that have been built on its peripheral eg. the old DSS building and the Ford garage next door, Gascoyne Way car park, Stag House, The Fire Station, and I'm sure the list is longer ... the Which? building, Waters garage etc.
Gav
...the worst thing ever done was the cinema and pub opposite Tesco being pulled down and the offices built in their place which have spent half their life empty.
Diane
The marquee arcade : a pointless buliding with no real purpose.
Steve H
Stag house - pointless. The Marquee - now being used to some effect as a much needed live music venue, but still most of it is pointless and awfully situated. Roads - most roads through/in/around Hertford are an eyesore, legendary for its inefficiency and rage-inducing rush hours.
Car parking - all multi-storey carparks are ugly but these are proper stinkers. People in town park anywhere and everywhere to avoid them.
Ross
Sovereign House needs to be demolished
Jan
It has to be the A414 - not particularly because of the road, but because of its 'chosen' location and what that has done to the local traffic in the area. If the 414 was not where it is, all of the local traffic hotspots would dissapear, as they would with a Southern or Northern by-pass.
Roger
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