Leeds nostalgia: City centre was gridlocked 70 years ago...

Dateline: January 21, 1919...
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If you think we have traffic problems now in Leeds, don’t worry, it’s nothing new. Seventy years ago traffic levels would have been a mere fraction of what they are today but that didn’t stop people worrying and moaning about them.

One man, Bertrand Mather, of Upper Wortley, took matters into his own hands in 1949 and sent in a proposal to solves the traffic congestion problems in City Square. After sitting down with “another enthusiast”, Mr T H Crowther, who was a Corporation employee, “in an afternoon and an evening” they together came up with a plan to ease the gridlock.

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Their first proposal was to get rid of traffic lights there, their second to change the flow of traffic from clockwise to anti-clockwise. There was even provision for a central footpath connecting Mill Hill to the island upon which the statue of the Black Prince stood. Meanwhile, east-bound trams from Wellington Street would be deflected down King Street (which did not carry trams) and Infirmary Street. The plan was sent to the council’s traffic advisory committee for consideration.

At the time, the one-way system was just three months old and had met with considerable opposition.

Mr Mather was at the time prospective Tory Parliamentary candidate for Leeds West. He was quoted saying: “I am not suggesting my scheme is perfect but is it a cheap interim one until the big plans are put into effect, which may involved another generation.”

In other news, villagers in Maltby raised £1,000 to send an ex-miner, Percy Haseman, 31, to America for an operation to cure a “paralysing disease”. The treatment worked and it was reported he was able to “walk and talk again”.

The operation was performed by Dr Ronald Klemme in St Louis, Missouri.