St Albans District Council needs a new Local Plan. The current Local Plan dates back to 1994 - it is one of the oldest in the country and needs to be replaced. The document is a blueprint for future development so that inevitable change can be managed carefully and thoughtfully. The plan looks at three areas: making the economy strong, helping communities be healthy, and taking care of the environment. The plan has to take into account what the government wants for planning for the future.
The plan and associated documents are available to view and comment on here: https://www.stalbans.gov.uk/new-local-plan
There are a number of public exhibitions of the plan during September - more details can be seen via the above link, check soon, as some have already taken place.
The consultation is open until 5 pm on 25th September.
Cycling is covered in many places throughout the plan, with the Council setting out policies for how cycling infrastructure is to be improved and how cycling is to be incorporated into new developments.
Whilst the STACC committee are broadly supportive of the Plan, there are more opportunities to prioritise cycling and walking. Specifically;
- There are many policy statements in the plan that will guide planning, but there are few hard targets (i.e. we aim to get X% of journeys less than 2 miles being done by cycling and walking)
- The Council must impose mandatory requirements on major developments (musts rather than shoulds in policy statements).
- Cycle parking needs to be given priority space over car parking in residential areas, shopping sites and schools.
Please take a look at the plan and draft site allocations (for new developments), attend one of the exhibitions if you can, and provide feedback through the website links.
This is a critically strategic document that will shape the development of St Albans for the next 18 years - if you want St Albans to be a healthier and safer place for cyclists then please give your feedback.
To get some ideas on points to make, you may wish to attend a public meeting at 7.30pm on Tuesday 12th September at the Friends Meeting House on Upper Lattimore Road organised jointly by Sustainable St Albans and St Albans and District Friends of the Earth specifically for this purpose.
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As we suspected when reported in August the repainting of white lines near the top of London Road near the Peahen has not made any difference to those motorists parking in the cycle lane and over double yellow lines outside the Chilli Restaurant in the early evening. There has been some yellow line repainting activity in St Albans recently, perhaps by the time you read this the double yellows will have been repainted and made more obvious.
Further towards the traffic lights by the Peahen, you can see that the left-hand lane is too narrow anyway for cars waiting at the lights, so they wait overlapping the on-road cycle lane, hence access for cycles to the ASL (advanced stop line) area is blocked.
Cars being too wide for our highways is something that even car enthusiasts recognise - this Autocar article dates from 2019!
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St Albans District Council has now approved a plan to construct about 40 new houses behind Boissy Close, off Colney Heath Lane (planning application 5/2022/2557). This includes the creation of two new formal access points to the Alban Way, one pedestrians-only, which will replace two existing informal access points (i.e. gaps in the hedge). So when the development is complete, you should be able to cycle to the Alban Way from Colney Heath Lane without going over the hump-backed bridge. Access to the new houses from Boissy Close will be along a shared-surface road (i.e. a road with no footway) and contravenes Herts County Council's own Local Transport Plan which requires that such a road should only be used for access to a maximum 25 dwellings.
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20-mph zones - piecemeal expansion
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The photo above shows a vacant post outside the Thai restaurant in St Peters Street and a 30-mph (& end of 20-mph) sign about 10 metres further along the road, with the text Remove Post Keep Sign painted on the pavement. We have deduced that the first post was erected in the wrong position and the sign on it has been transferred to the second post that is in the correct position (corresponding to one on the other side of the road). Of course, situations like this would be less likely to arise if it were not for the piecemeal implementation of 20-mph zones across the city rather than the blanket strategy used in nearby Dunstable.
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20-mph zone - wide area proposal for Cottonmill
PLEASE RESPOND TO CONSULTATION
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Yessss! Hertfordshire County Council (HCC) have put forward proposals for an extensive default 20mph area in South and Central St Albans.
The initial scheme design kept Cottonmill Lane as 30mph - thanks to Councillor Sandy Walkington's strong representation of the views of his constituents, Cottonmill Lane in the built up area is included in the streets to be 20mph. Please take the time to respond to the consultation with your support for zonal rather than street-by-street 20mph. If nothing else, it reduces the signage expense and clutter!
Don't let the shrieking of the 14% who oppose 20mph drown out the voice of the majority. Successive National Attitude Surveys* show that there is support from over 71% of the UK population for 20mph speed limits and their popularity increases even further after implementation.
* Source - Department of Transport 2019 survey, cited on 20s Plenty for Herts website .
The proposals include 66 roads stretching from Cottonmill Lane westward to Watford Road and northwards to join the existing 20mph zone south of London Road. Existing city centre 20mph sections of on London Road and Holywell Hill will be extended.
These proposals are very good news for anyone trying to access the Cottonmill Community and Cycling Centre at Old Oak, off Cottonmill Lane. The proposals include buildouts that will remove parked cars that block sightlines for anyone trying to get out of Old Oak. There are also buildouts on Abbots Avenue West which will make it much less scary for people walking along Cottonmill Lane to cross these very wide roads.
STACC is dismayed that speed cushions rather than sinusoidal humps are proposed for traffic calming on Cottonmill Lane. Anyone whose clip-on lights or panniers have gone flying at the existing speed cushion by the pinch point island by the old nunnery will agree. The Department of Transport considers that Cushions are not a preferred form of traffic calming on cycle routes because they constrain the ability of cyclists to choose their preferred position in the carriageway and are particularly hazardous to riders of three wheeled cycles. They recommend Sinusoidal ramps... which have have a smooth transition profile on both sides of the hump ... They are more comfortable for cyclists and should normally be used where on-carriageway cycling is anticipated. These quotations are from the Cycle Infrastructure Design national guidance, issued as Local Transport Note 1/20 in July 2020. There is an existing sinusoidal hump on Cottonmill Lane between the nunnery and the Prospect Road roundabout.
There is a lot to take in, we highlight here only a couple of key points, there is more detail to be considered than we can cover in a newsletter. Please go and examine the proposal and get your comments in.
MEMBER ACTION: You can see the details and respond via the HCC website here. The consultation is open until 9th October.
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St Albans High Street and Market Place
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Latest news from Hertfordshire County Council on the 'High Street Recovery' scheme in St Albans. There are two elements to the scheme.
The Traffic Regulation Order (TRO) for Market Place, Spencer Street and Upper Dagnall Street, St Albans, Prohibition of motor vehicles and Restricted parking zone order no SA 001 22 came into effect on 4 May 2022 as an experimental trial for up to 18 months. The update from HCC is that
Following positive consultation feedback on the trial, we will be developing new traffic orders for Market Place.
Market Place is open at all times to people who are walking and cycling. Vehicles can access for deliveries between 7am and 11am daily.
We will continue to seek funding for long-term improvements to Market Place to make it a more accessible and welcoming place for all.
You will note from this statement and the detailed TRO schedule and map that the prohibition applies to motor vehicles.
The TRO for the High Street and George Street trial, order no SA 002 22 came into effect on 17 October 2022 as an experimental trial making George Street one way for motor vehicles and creating Pedestrian and Cycle Zones in George Street most of the time and the High Street from 6pm Friday to 7am Monday. Full details in the TRO Schedule and drawings. The update from HCC is that this trial is continuing and that HCC would like feedback, but that consultation will close on 10 September 2023. HCC notes that 'Your views and experiences could change over time – feel free to respond more than once if that is the case. We'll use your most recent response for our analysis and reporting.'
MEMBER ACTION: give your latest views and feedback - find the survey and details of the scheme on the HCC High Street Recovery webpage, scroll down and click through for St Albans.
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STACC AGM & Public Meeting - Tuesday 3 October
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You are strongly encouraged to come to our AGM and public meeting! After a very brief AGM element, we will hear from two STACC members on the joys of cycling holidays. The meeting is at the Cottonmill Community & Cycling Centre on Tuesday 3 October at 7.30pm.
Huge kudos to the community leaders and the Verulam Cycling Club for their efforts to bring about the building of this wonderful community resource. STACC is proud to have made a small contribution to the process.
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We look forward to welcoming lots of you to this meeting, do bring your friends. It is an opportunity to ask questions about what STACC does and hear about our achievements, and a chance to admire the CC&CC facilities.
October 2023 marks the 25th anniversary of the forming of STACC. We hope that we have less and less to do to make St Albans City and District a better place for residents and visitors to cycle in the coming years - but to keep going for the time being we urgently need a few more members to get involved with our monthly 'committee' meetings. At these meetings we review current infrastructure and any proposals and decide what we are going to do about it and then do it. For various reasons a number of our long-serving stalwarts cannot be as active in the campaign going forward and so we need to expand our pool of activist team members if we are to continue our work on behalf of everyone in our area who 'wants to cycle, but...' . Do please consider getting more involved.
Your first committee meeting might seem a bit daunting, as the agenda can be quite long and detailed, but you soon get up to speed. It is called the committee, but the meetings are very informal and efficient, there is no fusty-dusty standing on ceremony. The STACC committee is a supportive and pro-active team - do join!
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Although the Ordnance Survey Landranger and Explorer maps are a superb resource for cyclists, especially if you have the OS app on your mobile phone, they have a deficiency when it comes to depicting cyclepaths which are not bridleways or byways.
You have probably heard of OpenStreetMap, which we use for some hyperlinks in these newsletters, but a version for cyclists called OpenCycleMap, which is based on OpenStreetMap but with a cycling-specific layer is also available. However, it is not complete as it relies on users to submit relevant updates. There are some significant omissions in the St Albans area.
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As you can see from the extract above, it does not show Jersey Lane as a cyclepath (a blue line).
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Nor does it show the cyclepath alongside the North Orbital Road from the Park Street roundabout to Shenley Lane.
We would like to improve the accuracy and reliability of OpenCycleMap in our area, so if any STACC member has had any experience in updating this map, please email us on info@stacc.org.uk
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Two sections of the National Cycle Network in our District. On the right, the Alban Way (NCN61) is maintained by St Albans District Council Greenspaces Team in accordance with a Greenspace Action Plan. This picture was taken after a late summer trim of the verges. The full width of asphalt is now available for use, making this path better for walking and cycling. The path through the Berners Drive park has likewise had a trim recently, and also the Camp Cycle Route hedges have been neatened up to maximise space and sightlines.
On the left we see the A1081 Harpenden Road shared footway, NCN6, which is not well maintained. This section of path is down to a narrow strip between nettles. Do keep reporting using the HCC highway fault reporting system. Yes, we know, it is put 'under review by local engineers' and then it disappears, the fault report that is, not the actual nettles or mud. The more we ask, the sooner we get an improvement. It is something we repeatedly raise with officers and will continue to do so.
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We try not to use abbreviations in our newsletters, at least not without prior explanation; however some do slip through the net so here is a list of those we commonly use:
- ATF – Active Travel Fund – government money for local authorities. link
- CMS – Countryside Management Service (part of HCC) link
- CRoW – Countryside & Rights of Way (HCC & CMS)
- DfT – Department for Transport – link to the public support-for-cycling survey
- EATF – Emergency Active Travel Fund, link
- GAP – Greenspace Action Plan, link
- GTP – Growth and Transport Plan, drawn up by HCC, link
- HCC – Hertfordshire County Council, link
- LTN 1/20 – Cycle-infrastructure design issued by DfT, link
- MMP – Maintenance and Management Plan – a follow-on from GAPs & last for 10 years
- SAA – St Albans Abbey railway station, link
- SAC – St Albans City railway station, link
- SADC – St Albans District Council, link
- SFRI – Strategic Rail-Freight Interchange, link
- TRO – Traffic-Regulation Order, link; ETRO is an Experimental TRO, link.
- VRRA – Verulam Road Residents Association, link
- WMP – Widen My Path, CycleStreets website to suggest improvements, link
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