Follow The Dreadful Brick Road

29th JULY 2025

Urban legend has it that many moons ago, a man in a top hat, plump in appearance and smelling of industrial grease walked into a meeting room at the back of The Kings Head Hotel. Isinpart Kingkong Brunel had made the journey from Bristol to talk with influential dignitaries about a road in the market town of Ross-on-Wye.
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Taking his place at the old wooden table next to a frothing tankard of Wye Valley Best, Isinpart reached for his pipe and tobacco, and putt-putt-putted with the others. As plumes of smoke filled the air, they debated and decided on what would be the best road surface material for the High Street.
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Brunel soon realised that his engineering background and independent perspective was not what was needed - no, the way the conversation was unfolding what was really needed was simply a voice of common sense.
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Digantaries had decided that they wanted to go with decorative brick paving for the High Street. It was getting out of hand. The blinkers were on. “Let’s do the bit by the Market Place too” one said, “and while we’re at it, let’s have a pretty curve pattern in that bit to completely confuse half the drivers into thinking that’s the border of the road so they end up driving around it”. The other dignitaries clapped like seals in support and self-adoration of the group’s proposal, quaffing ale and rattling their tankards.
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“Whoooaah” Isinpart interjected, standing up to slam both hands down on the table. “You do know this is a f*****g main road? It’s not some pedestrianised, barely used surface” (a couple of dignitaries looked sideways at each other at the word pedestrianisation). “It’s driven upon all day! If you do this, it won’t last. It will end up sat on the road like an unmade brick duvet, and when it’s all bl***y shafted your main route through your town will have to close for yonks to redo it” (Isinpart was known for his terribly bad language so we apologise to readers).
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One of the dignitaries pushed back, “well let’s think about it, there are lots of other considerations and brick might be a good choice”
“It’s not a good choice, it’s a terrible one” Brunel fumed back, “you need to use a material suitable for the job, drains will collapse under it, it will go all b****rd wonky and what are you going to do then. For f....”
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Dignitaries looked at each other, muttering in pairs, clearly not happy with the visitor. At this point one of them said “right we are going to reinstate standing orders” and the baffled and agitated industrial revolutionist was forced into silence.
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The gavel was banged. Immediately they rushed to a vote - “who votes for brick paving the High Street?”
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Meanwhile …back in the real world, because nobody seems to know how the rather odd decision was made or who by, Ross-on-Wye is left with three County Councillors who have a massive problem because the brick road is shot. People in 4x4s passing through town on their way back to their million-pound houses won’t notice much, but the rest of us are bouncing up and down in our cars like crash test dummies. It’s got to the point that small cars have to go really slowly and they are seen weaving around all the worst sunken bits!
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Oh well, we will have to see whether our three County Councillors have what it takes to sort out The Dreadful Brick Road.
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Will our own Tin Man, Scarecrow and Lion have the heart, intelligence and courage to get it sorted?
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So far there hasn’t been so much of a pip-squeak about it, but one thing’s for sure - it will be a LOT of work to put the road right, and especially if a similar unsuitable brick surface is used again, and closing such a main road through Ross will be cause havoc.
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Perhaps it's time to get ahead of the game and a wiser choice of road surface can be considered and decided upon?

Let's hope wise voices are listened to and decisions aren't known about too late.
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Oh, Christ, who remembers the red chippings? Noooooooooooooo!!!!
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To be continued?
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On a serious note:
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There are Town Council Elections happening in a couple of weeks (Aug 14th 2025), where a couple of seats are free, one for Ross East and one for Ross West. Will the winning candidates be ones that will hold our County Councillors to account for getting the best for Ross-on-Wye?

HALC in a meeting in Ross a few years back, was trying to encourage members of the public present (at a meeting at the Larupperz Centre) to stand for the Ross-on-Wye Town Council - the HALC representative described how one of the important key things you get to do as a Town Councillor is to hold your County Councillors to account.
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This raises an interesting and important question - would a Town Councillor hold themselves to account for work they do as a County Councillor? Who knows? A bit difficult or unlikely when you can mark your own homework?

Many people feel that if someone is a County Councillor it isn’t helpful if they are also a Town Councillor (which the 3 of them are).

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