B3146 (Somerset)

This article is about a possible use of the number near Weston-super-Mare.
For the original and extant route in Dorset, see B3146.

The now-unclassified potential former B3146 Worle High Street

This use of the B3146 number was for was a short road to the east of Weston-super-Mare. This route was originally part of the A370, and was then renumbered B3346 in the mid-1920s when the A370, which originally ran along Worle High Street, was moved onto the newly built New Bristol Road and the vacated section of road was given Class II status, and that seemed to be that.

The B3346 is still shown on the 1948 Ten Mile Road Map

and as an unmarked B road on the 1958 One Inch map

The B3346 number was seemingly still in use in 1948, but subsequent maps at One Inch and Quarter Inch scale whilst showing it as a B road generally do not label it.

However, large scale OS sheets, and the 1950s 1:25,000 regularly give the number B3146, a duplicate of a road in Dorset, and presumed to be a mapping error, but it appears on enough sheets that it might not be.

To further confuse matters, the B3440 number seems to have also been applied to this route in the late 1970s or early 1980s, and survived until the early 21st century, when it was belatedly declassified after being relegated to a spur with the opening of the new dual carriageway Somerset Avenue.

As the B3440 number is also used in Devon (for part of the former B3391), it raises the question as to why the B3346 number was dropped, and when exactly the number was changed, and if it was ever really B3146 in between.