A CITY centre worker has said a paved area of the Old Market's car park is an "accident waiting to happen."

Marie-Louise Evans has questioned why the road surface at the corner of Waitrose is paved and a different surface to the rest of the car park at the Hereford shopping centre.

She said: "From Blackfriars Street, from the Merton Meadow car park, there is the lovely walkway. There is a paved bit in the road in the car park. You would say it would be pedestrian access."

Ms Evans, who works in Widemarsh Street, said she walks on the walkway quite often to go to work and she said she notices that as drivers are looking for parking spaces they are not very observant to pedestrians crossing that area.

She said she saw a close-call just recently where a pedestrian walked across this area in front of a car.

She said: "I sent an email to Old Market. They are saying it is not pedestrian access but why would you have part of the road paved if it is not pedestrian access?"

Ms Evans said she was told that no-one has been involved in an accident at the site but she said they should not wait for this to happen.

She added: "I think it is an accident waiting to happen. You can see people walking across the road thinking it is part of the walkway."

Ms Evans believes this area should be treated as an official crossing and should be more defined with signs and markings.

A spokeswoman from The Old Market Shopping Centre said the area is a shared surface crossing that has been in use for four years, since the centre opened, with no accidents reported.

She added: "We take matters regarding the safety of our customer very seriously and this is the first complaint we have received.

"The crossing has been approved by our traffic consultants, the car park also undergoes an annual health and safety inspection by a third party; neither of these assessments has raised an issue with the crossing.

"We have also recently received a Park Mark for our car park which is an annual inspection to verity safety and security for all customers and again this was not raised by the consultant or the police who inspect."