Places Features

Albany Street, like many other terraced streets, was being choked by cars and blighted by anti-social behaviour. A few years ago some local residents formed a group to try and foster community spirit and halt the area’s decline.

The Albany Street hippo

The street was chosen for a £450,000 makeover, following a grant from central government. The work took three years to finish.

The idea of a Home Zone is based on a system developed in the Netherlands during the 1970s. In Holland they are called “woonerfs or “streets for living” and try and balance the needs of cars and pedestrians.

The streets have parking bays and on-street furniture so people can sit out and talk. Plants and sculpture are used to add visual interest. They also incorporate the usual traffic calming measures such as speed bumps.

The Albany Street project features sculptures that draw on the history of the area. Nearby Spring Bank was the site of Hull’s Victorian zoological gardens. The street echoes this past with wire sculptures of elephants mounted on steel poles and a granite hippopotamus. Local sculptor Saffron Waghorn spent six months carving the hippo, which sits on a plinth on the end of the street.

The council officer responsible for traffic projects in Hull, Vali Birang, says the council is looking for other streets which could be converted into Home Zones. He rejects criticism that the project is too costly and merely displaces traffic into other streets.

Sculptor Saffron Waghorn (left) inspects her work

Opening the scheme Hull Council Leader Ken Branson praised the way the residents and the council worked together to complete the scheme as an “absolutely superb piece of collective work”

The councillor's view is echoed by local residents, one of whom says he hopes the transformation will “develop more of a community spirit”