Dunedin's Baldwin Street stripped of world's steepest street record

Dunedin's Baldwin Street has lost its status as the world's steepest street.

The sleepy Welsh town of Harlech is officially the home of the world's steepest street.

Ffordd Pen Llech, which snakes through the town of Harlech, has a gradient of 1:2.67.

This record beats Baldwin Street, which has a ratio of 1:2.86.

Baldwin Street has held the record for over a decade.

Welsh man Gwyn Headley has been leading the campaign to snatch the title of the steepest street.

An incident a year ago prompted him to start the campaign.

"I have a 4WD car with anti-lock brakes - I got about halfway down [Ffordd Pen Llech] and the car slid forward about six feet with all the wheels locked and I thought: 'This is very steep' ... So I went on to Wikipedia and looked it up and it said it was the steepest street in the UK," he told RNZ.

"So that piqued my curiosity and I looked up the steepest street in the world and found it was yours in Dunedin."

However, when Headley compared the figures for the two streets it showed the Welsh one was steeper so he got in in touch with Guinness World Records.

This article was first published on nzherald.co.nz and is republished here with permission