FOOTWAY REPAIRS: Bedford Road

Hertfordshire Highways will be carrying out footway repairs to a section
of Bedford Road from Monday 2nd November, for approximately seven days.
Work will be carried out between 08.30 and 17.00, Monday to Friday. No
work will take place over the weekend. Advance warning boards with the
contact details and works information will be erected before the
scheduled start date.

While works are in progress, Bedford Road will be closed to all through
traffic. Access to all properties will still be available but residents
may face delays when critical works are underway. For the duration of
the works, parking on the carriageway will continue to be permitted
where it is currently allowed but some parking bays may be suspended to
allow safe working practices.

I would like to apologise in advance for any inconvenience that these
works may bring you. We will endeavour to keep the disruption to a
minimum. In the meantime, if you have any concerns that you wish to
bring to my attention regarding these works, please do not hesitate to
contact me using the contact information above.”

Internal county council note:

Three Valleys Water will commence water main repair works at the above
location on Sunday 8th November that are likely to continue through until
the evening of Tuesday 10th November. The works will not commence until
after 1pm on Sunday thus avoiding the Remembrance Day Parade on St Peters
Street.
The works have been scheduled this way to avoid both Market days (Wednesday
and Saturday).

The repair works will require the use of temporary two way signals that
will be operational 24hrs a day. In order to reduce congestion these will
be manually controlled.

The works are not the usual simple repair job and require the shut down and
redistribution of major parts of the water network in St Albans City
Centre. The pipe that is leaking is attached to an 12″ Imperial Cast Iron
water main, so any repair will involve the custom manufacture of a T piece
that will fit a metric sized connection pipe. As a result of the need for
the custom manufacture of the pipe, there will be periods within the three
days where it will appear that no work is being carried out.

This job is likely to lead to a number of calls and increased congestion in
the area but has been planned to hopefully reduce its potential impact.

If you have any further queries please feel free to contact me.

NOTICE is given that the Hertfordshire County Council intend to make an Order under Section 14[1] of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984, to prohibit all traffic from using that length of A1057 Hatfield Road, St Albans from a point 20 metres west of its junction with Lemsford Road south eastwards to a point 10 metres west of its junction with Station Way, a distance of approximately 150 metres.

The alternative route for traffic will be via:-
A1057 Hatfield Road, A1081 St Peter Street, B691 (Victoria Street, Grimston Road, Stanhope Road), Camp Road, A1057 Hatfield Road and vice versa

The purpose of the Order is to enable carriageway resurfacing works to take place.

It is anticipated that the section of road will be closed between the hours of 9.30am and 4.00pm (Mondays to Fridays inclusive) for up to 5 days, sometime during the period 27 November 2009 and 31 March 2010, when signs are in place.

If you have any queries about the carriageway resurfacing works or the temporary road closure, please contact the Project Engineer concerned Richard Tagliarini tel. 01707 356288 at Hertfordshire Highways.

As of Friday 23 October 2009
 
The Chief Medical Officer has confirmed that he believes the second wave of swine flu is well underway. The rise in cases continues but is slow and steady, rather than the sharp peak seen in the first wave back in the summer.
 
In Hertfordshire, numbers remain steady with approximately 100 people collecting antiviral medication each day. Around 100 schools in Hertfordshire have reported some pupils with swine flu symptoms but no Hertfordshire school has what is classified as an ‘outbreak’ ( i.e. 15% absenteeism or marked increase in absentee rates due to flu-like illness).
 
In the past few days, important elements of the vaccination programme have been confirmed:
 
Each GP surgery will receive an initial 500 doses from 26 October. Following receipt of their vaccine supply, practices will be writing out to patients in the priority groups inviting them to attend a clinic as soon as possible. This means that practices are likely to be vaccinating their patients during both November and December.
A press release is to be issued by the PCTs this week to inform local people about the vaccination programme, explain why the vaccine is needed and how those in the priority groups will be invited to receive their vaccination.

To view the latest edition, click here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXACmKLxM9U

We asked you what you thought about banning cars from St Peter’s Street. Respondents split 3 to 2 in favour. Interestingly, however, those who were strongly in favour outnumbered those strongly against by 3 to 1.

Thanks you to all who participated.

Please use our latest on line survey on this page as well as telling us what you think about county services.

In among the enormous amount of pointless clutter there is the problem of temporary road signs – these could be old road works signs which the contractors have failed to take away. Or they could be ‘New Road Layout Ahead’ in place maybe years after the junction was redesigned. If you see anything like this then please let us know.

There is more to the county council than just the neglect of our roads and pavements. They sometimes go one step further - making us and themselves look ridiculous. We have begun to catalogue their worst excesses: signs covering other signs, white lines repainted when they should have been removed, traffic lights that can never have worked. You name it - they have done it.

Go and have a look on:

http://hertshighwayshowlers.blogspot.com/

And if you have a photograph to show us please email me on this address with the photo and a single sentence description.

Herts Highways took a comprehensive political beating last night at the local Highways Joint Member Panel, meeting in the chamber of the District Council.

Members were virtually united in condemning both plans and performance. In particular a Lib Dem motion expressing concern at the highways repairs programme over the next five years was passed – in effect rejecting entirely the official proposals for road and pavement repairs.

Councillors felt that the much vaunted ‘asset management’ system had provided perverse results. South West Harpenden had a third more road repair schemes than central St Albans and an amazing four times as many as the Sandridge division (comprising Sandridge village and Marshalswick North).

Chris White said: ‘I cannot support this programme. Not only are the proposals at odds with what the public sees on the ground but the timescales for the work are simply unacceptable. In my division, roads already turning to gravel are scheduled for repair in 2012 - or even 2015.’

He added that some roads clearly buckling or subsiding were scheduled merely for ‘thin surface dressing’ – despite repeated representations made by local councillors.

In addition members:
- criticised the county’s safety engineers for botching the Milehouse junction
- condemned the county council for ignoring its own policy in relation to pavement repairs in the conservation area: the Panel demanded that the pavements in the Hart Road area be restored to their original condition
- criticised officer proposals for Everlasting Lane
- rejected the proposals for the location of salt bins on the grounds that representations from at least three councillors had been totally ignored.

Chris White also gave notice that unless he was given a date for the resurfacing of Lemsford Road within seven days he would make a formal complaint about the breach of faith by Herts Highways (who had more than once given a categorical assurance to elected members and the pubic that the road would be fully repaired).

Chris commented: ‘It is unprecedented for a Highways Panel to reject a works programme and there now have to be urgent talks between council officials and local political leaders to sort out the mess that Herts Highways have made of running highways in St Albans. The blame lies fully at the door of the Conservative portfolioholder for highways who – as ever – was entirely absent from the proceedings. It is quite clear that Stuart Pile is presiding over a shambles and that he couldn’t care less.’

I have the following objections to the IWP (the highways ‘Integrated Works Programme’) in detail:

Alma Road/Victoria Street: this is urgent and cannot wait until 2015 - the road is self-evidently collapsing and is already dangerous to cyclists
Althorp Road: misspelled again. Also works are complete, as acknowledged elsewhere in the agenda
Bardwell Road: carriageway repairs needed but not listed
Beaumont Avenue: as discussed with officers on numerous occasions this needs reconstructing not thin surfacing
Granville Road: this has already turned to gravel and so needs doing in 2009 and not 2012
Hatfield Road bridge: identified from our own survey as needing doing urgently. It cannot wait until 2012.
Normandy Road: this is in a poor state and cannot wait until 2014
Ridgmont Road: this is in a poor state and cannot wait until 2014

I note also that the assurances given over Lemsford Road have been reneged on as I flagged up with senior council officials. None of you had had the courtesy to come back to me with an explanation as to why it on hold. This is totally unacceptable.

The following roads have been wrongly included in this division:
Cannon Street
Castle Road
Central Drive
Homewood Road
Kingsbury Avenue
New England Street
West View Road

Belmont Hill has been included in St Albans South

Chris White