The county council’s model for asset management – ie which road gets repaired first – was roundly criticised by Chris White this evening. The model relies upon various factors, including traffic and HGV use. Officials admitted that there are not comprehensive traffic counts and that St Albans had more traffic than many other parts of the county. They stated that they assumed that HGV use was even ie the more general traffic the more HGV use there would be.

Chris cited various roads in his division which had heavy HGV use – disproportionate to normal traffic (eg Clarence Road, Spencer Street, Selby Avenue).

Officials conceded that the county council went for easy wins – spending disproportionately on low traffic rural roads.