As someone who from the late 50s to nearly the year 2000 had to walk down Prince of Wales Road at 7am or earlier to get to the other side of the river to work it saddens me to read the state we have allowed the road to get into.

When I started work the road appearance could only be described as majestic and it had a variety of shops and businesses throughout its length.

As I remember it had a car showroom, Army officers' tailors, a Navy recruitment centre, at least one bank, two newsagents, two cinemas, a large ironmonger's shop, two cafés, one small night club at the bottom, men's clothing shops, taxi office, large home furnishing store, a garage, chemist and countless small office units.

The first few years the state of the road early in the morning was pristine but as the years passed and the shops and businesses closed one by one and the clubs and takeaways moved in the road deteriorated.

From then on when I went to work it slowly turned into a human pigsty with piles of vomit, food boxes and chicken bones and parts of pizzas everywhere and pools of the night's urine in nearly every doorway.

Wintertime was worse because on the dark mornings riverside rats ran all over the road but never any foxes.

For years it has been a no-go area for ordinary Norwich people on their night out and I understand that the council and the police now want the road completely closed to traffic for the public.

Is this because of the increasing opening hours for these clubs and the police and our council have taken the easy path which is allowing a historical part of our city to become an official no-go area at night.