Baldwin Street: Welsh road challenges New Zealand street for honour of world’s steepest

A Welsh town is challenging for the world record for the planet’s steepest street.

The title is currently held by Baldwin Street in the city of Dunedin, New Zealand, which has a gradient of 35 per cent at its steepest point.

However, residents of Harlech, a small town in Snowdonia, believe one winding road, Ffordd Pen Llech, is steeper by one percentage point.

Official measurements are due to be taken next week. They will be sent to Guinness World Records, before being revealed a few weeks later.

"I was driving down it in the summer when it struck me how steep it could be," said Gwyn Headley, a Harlech resident and the man behind the world record attempt.

He told BBC Radio Wales the street was already considered the UK’s steepest, but that a different methodology was used to calculate Baldwin Street.

Mr Headley got in touch with surveyor Myrddyn Phillips, who agreed to use GPS equipment to work out the gradient of Ffordd Pen Llech’s steepest 10-metre section - Guinness World Records’ stipulation for recognition.

Any road or street considered needs to be a public thoroughfare commonly used by the public, who have to be able to drive a car up it.

The challenge to Baldwin Street may have higher stakes than first appears. Thanks to its current status as world’s steepest, the road in Dunedin draws thousands of tourists every year.

It has proved a hit on Instagram with visitors, helping the profile of the city, as well as being the site for a number of daredevil attempts, including one stuntman who drove on a motorcycle down the road on one wheel.

In 2010, motorcycle stuntman Ian Soanes wheelied his way down the street in front of a 3,000-strong crowd.