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St Albans City and District Strategic Local Plan
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At long last a consultation of a Strategic Local Plan is coming soon, a press release announcing this was issued on 3 July. It has been a very long and bumpy journey to update the SLP, our current local plan dates from 1994!
Extracts from the press release:
Subject to the Committee’s approval, the public consultation on the draft Local Plan will run from 12 July to 25 September.
This will be a ten-and-a-half-week period of consultation, considerably longer than the minimum period of 6 weeks. This is to allow both for the school summer holiday period and a programme of exhibitions and surgeries to be held across the District in early September after the school holiday period ends.
People who live and work in the District, community groups and businesses are all encouraged to give their views. We want to hear from as many people and organisations as possible. The feedback received will help shape the final proposals.
The draft Local Plan states its first objective is to address climate change and this is a thread running throughout the Plan because of its importance.
Do look out for this consultation. STOP PRESS: from 12 July to 25 September, report in HertsAd. STACC will be calling for provision for cycling in particular and active travel in general. That means planning requirements for adequate space to store cycles - of all types, not just bicycles - securely and accessibly in homes and at destinations such as work places and other destinations such as schools, health centres, sports facilities, shops etc
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An outline planning application has been made for the residential development for up to 190 dwellings and associated works at Copsewood, Lye Lane Bricket Wood (Planning Application 5/2023/0983). This is the area where it was intended to build an hotel and conference centre 8 years ago, which was promoted by former St Albans MP Kerrry Pollard, and is south of the Noke Hotel and the Shell filling station by the roundabout where the Watford Road meets the A405 at the southern edge of Chiswell Green.
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The application has particular relevance to cyclists because the planning proposals include some transport infrastructure enhancements:
- a signalised (Toucan) crossing for cyclists across the A405 from Lye Lane to Noke Lane
- a signalised (Toucan) crossing for cyclists across the A405 by the east exit of the Noke roundabout
- the closure of a section of Lye Lane to vehicular traffic, effectively making it a bridleway, and the construction of a new road through the development providing a by-pass for motor traffic
- widening of the shared-use path alongside the A405
STACC supports the development for the reasons itemised above.
Good news! Active Travel England is now a statutory consultee on all planning applications for developments equal to or exceeding 150 housing units, 7,500 m2 of floorspace or an area of 5 hectares. As explained in the ATE press release, a pilot study gave very positive results. So developers of large schemes will need to give more consideration to prioritising and providing for active travel, although ATE is not able to direct the outcome of the planning application.
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Active Travel scheme for Wheathampstead
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Hertfordshire County Council will soon be starting work on improvements to the Station Road Roundabout, installing crossings on the B653 Codicote Road / Lower Luton Road (extract from scheme drawing below). The scheme also includes speed cushions on the B653 approaches.
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The works are going to be happening through the summer holidays until the beginning of October and will require 4-way traffic lights to control traffic through the works.
STACC was consulted on this scheme at stakeholder stage in December 2019, we welcome the improvements.
We suggested the scheme would be even better if it involved reconfiguring the roundabout to a more compact layout, with single lane entry. The volume and type of traffic (buses, HGVs) on the B653 meant that the design team was unable to adopt the single arm layout, as they themselves had hoped. Our comments were included in the design review process, and of course, LTN 1/20 Cycle Infrastructure Design has in the meantime been published, clarifying design standards for highways infrastructure to provide better conditions to encourage and enable more people to cycle.
This scheme gives a strong message to drivers that pedestrians have priority at junctions, and we welcome it.
Next steps for campaigners: the Highways team are well aware of the lack of a decent connecting route for cycling between Wheathampstead and Harpenden, so do keep pushing for improvements. Segregated walking and cycling along the Lower Luton Road gives a direct link with street lighting and without hills, unlike other route options between the two settlements.
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Active Travel Award for
Katherine Warrington School
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Congratulations to Katherine Warrington School on being awarded National STARS Secondary School of the Year 2022/23 at the Modeshift STARS National School Travel Awards Celebration on Thursday 22 June.
Modeshift STARS is the Centre of Excellence for the delivery of Effective Travel Plans in Education, Business and Community settings. The STARS Education scheme recognises schools and other educational establishments that have shown excellence in supporting cycling, walking and other forms of sustainable and active travel.
Well done to the Hertfordshire County Council’s Active and Safer Travel Team for their part in this award. Their role is to help make walking, cycling and the use of passenger transport a realistic and attractive option for school journeys and to support alternatives to using the car, particularly on short journeys.
If KWS can achieve this without a safe walking and cycling route between the school and a significant village in the catchment area.... The school was awarded Gold in February this year, there is a Platinum award to go for!
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Before
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After
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The pictures above were submitted by a STACC member with the accompanying text: I regularly cycle through Oysterfields play area, but St Albans City Hospital staff car-parking made it harder and harder over the last year or so (despite double yellow lines) to get through to it during the day. The final straw was when the road was dug up and almost impossible for pushchairs, bikes, wheelchairs etc. I contacted West Herts hospital trust via Twitter and they responded with action less than 48 hours later. 👍 They say they will do something more permanent to signpost no car-parking on the dropped kerb when the road is resurfaced.
Well done our member! We would love to have more stories like this in our newsletter! Do let us know of any responses to your individual campaigning that would be of interest to the wider membership - send your information to info@stacc.org.uk, preferably with some photographs for illustration.
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Before and after of a pothole on New Greens Avenue, reported via the online Hertfordshire Highways Fault Reporting page. Our member has a simple scale card to record the pothole dimensions, but a hand, foot or other recognisable object can serve the same purpose. Potholes more than 50mm deep tend to be fixed quickly and those deeper than 100mm are fixed very quickly. Smaller potholes tend to be 'noted'.
Other faults tend to be less swiftly dealt with, if at all. STACC continues to raise our concern that carriageway faults such as potholes get sorted while mud or vegetation on cycling and walking routes are put 'under review by local engineers' until they quietly drop off the system. Our contacts at Hertfordshire Highways are aware of this shortcoming in the asset management system, and their message to us is KEEP REPORTING IT. This will help them make the case for improvements to the system. Contacting your County Councillor about a particular problem can also help to move things along. |
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On the Alban Way, the Smallford station pop-up café is in operation on Sunday 30th July, from 11 till 4 pm, They will be serving teas, coffees and soft drinks together with home-made cakes and pastries - and visitors will have an opportunity to see the exciting changes taking place around the station. All funds raised will go towards the cost of their collaborative community project to Improve the environment around Smallford station. |
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Alban Way - works at Ver Bridge
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We have been advised that Cadent will soon be carrying out works to divert their gas pipeline from over the Ver on the Alban Way bridge to below the Ver in an underground pipe, to be installed using directional drilling.
The worksite will of necessity encroach on the Alban Way path, reducing the width rather than closing the route, thank goodness.
It is important for path user and worker safety that cyclists slow down and go carefully through the section of narrow path.
STACC has asked for signage to be helpful and sensible. A thoughtless contractor will just stick out a couple of 'Cyclists Dismount' signs. A considerate contractor will use actually helpful and informative signs such as standard highways signs for 'road narrows' and specific messages such as 'pedestrian priority cyclists give way' and 'slow down through works'.
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Cottonmill Ride - 16 September
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Save the Date & Call for Volunteers
Sopwell Eco-stars are hosting a one day community cycling event at the Cottonmill Community & Cycling Centre on Saturday 16 September, from 10am to 1pm. There will be an all-abilities sponsored "Bright Ride" around the cycle track, a whole lot of family friendly fun and STACC have been invited to be there to promote cycling and give out information. More details will follow in next months newsletter but we'd love to hear from anyone willing to volunteer on the day - Eco-stars are looking for some volunteer marshals and STACC urgently needs more members to join our team of stall stalwarts.
Just email info@stacc.org.uk if you'd like to get involved or have any great ideas for the event.
Good choice of date by the Sopwell Eco-stars, at the beginning of European Mobility Week, which runs from 16 to 22 September each year, culminating in Car-Free Day. The week promotes behavioural change in favour of active mobility and public transport.
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Car Free Day - Playing Out
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Playing Out St Albans is encouraging residents to apply for a road closure to celebrate Car-Free Day, all the details are on their recent blog post. You can listen to the Environment Matters podcast, with Sustainable St Albans’ Playing Out Coordinator and local Our Street Party Representative, Nicola Wyeth, explaining the many benefits of closing your road for World Car Free Day – some of which you might not expect. There is a page all about Playing Out on the Sustainable St Albans website.
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Hatfield House is known as providing an irritation for cyclists as if you pay to enter the grounds, you are allowed to drive to the car-park but not cycle to it. A blow to its owner has now been struck. The Marquess of Salisbury has been forced to allow the general public to walk on part of his estate after the local council ruled that it was common land.
Earlier this year, he opposed an application by the Open Spaces Society (OSS) to register a 1.8-hectare (4.45-acre) area of land on his estate, on the south side of Wildhill Road, Hatfield, as a common. The land comprises a mixture of grass, shrub, and trees.
The application to register the land provided evidence that the area is waste-land of a manor, which means that it can be registered as common land. The land has now been added to the common-land register, and the public will have the right to walk there.
According to the OSS, waste land of a manor is land of poor quality, which the lord or lady of the manor could not cultivate, and under the law this has been counted as common land.
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Herts County Council has confirmed that some of the £4.5 million funding received for Active-Travel improvements will be used to improve the junction between Water Lane and Lower High Street in Watford (by Cotswold Outdoor), where there have been a series of accidents involving cyclists. The plan below shows the layout of the new junction. Key changes are moving the cycle lane out further into the High Street, to improve cyclists’ sight line, and reducing Water Lane to one lane of traffic with a more distinct turn so it is less easy for drivers to treat the right turn more like a bend (and failing to stop) than a road junction.
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Active Access to Jarman Park
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Hertfordshire County Council is proposing walking and cycling improvements along A414 St Albans Road at Jarman Park, Hemel Hempstead, and would like to hear your views. This is another Active Travel Fund project.
Information about the proposed improvements can be found online: www.hertfordshire.gov.uk/JarmanPark
The A414 presents a significant barrier between residential areas to the north and key local destinations, including shops and leisure facilities at Jarman Park. The proposals include upgrading the crossings on Bennets End Road and Jarman Way to toucan crossings, widening existing paths to make them suitable for shared use walking and cycling, and installing a new signalised crossing of the A414 by the footbridge to provide direct, step-free access to Jarman Park for people walking and cycling.
You can submit your feedback via the online survey at www.hertfordshire.gov.uk/JarmanPark or by emailing your comments to ATFconsultation@hertfordshire.gov.uk before 31 July.
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Near Stratford-on-Avon in Warwickshire, you can almost hear the Tysoe village-hall committee moaning about 'the money we wasted on cycle parking that nobody uses'.
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