From the District Council

Refuse and recycling services are severely affected by snow today, Monday. Crews are out assessing the situation. They will make collections where they can. Main road addresses are more likely to get collections than the side roads. We apologise for any inconvenience this may mean for residents. We will do everything we can to keep waste and recycling services going. Refuse and recycling crews, if they are unable to make collections, will be out clearing snow and gritting pavements.

From tomorrow (Tuesday 21st December) the Council will move to a partial Collect All service (see Refuse and Recycling note below). This will mean that the crews will collect all green and black bin waste together and send it to landfill in an effort to keep services going and streets clear of waste. Residents are advised, therefore, to put out both their green and black bins for collection (from Tuesday 21st). Crews are having trouble getting frozen refuse out of the bins and residents are asked to help by loosening the lids and contents of their bins. Contents of Recycling Boxes (e.g. glass, paper, plastic) are not included in the partial Collect All arrangements. These will be collected when conditions get back to normal. We anticipate at this stage that this situation will continue into the New Year. This will, of course, depend on the weather. Updates will be posted here.

All Council sites are open as usual today (Monday), though there may be a reduced service in some areas. Some sites may close early.

Links to information about leisure centre arrangements can be found here. Westminster Lodge, Harpenden Sports Centre, Harpenden Swimming Pool, Batchwood Tennis Centre and Adventure World in London Colney are all open. Please call ahead for latest updates, before setting out. Contact details can be found here. Golf courses are closed today. The ramp at Clarence Park is closed for safety reasons.

Meals on Wheels are being delivered with the help of the Herts 4×4 Club. Frozen meals were delivered with hot meals at the weekend in case of problems in the early part of the week.

The Christmas Market in St Albans is up and running.

We understand from Herts Highways that the snow ploughs and gritters are out.

There were 97 calls over the weekend for urgent housing repairs and the team has been dealing with these and will be prioritising efforts on emergency repairs. The usual planned appointments systemhas been halted whilst crews deal with breakdowns and jobs outstanding from the weekend callouts and other priority cases that come in. All Council tenants who have a non-emergency appointment booked have been informed. The housing repairs page of the website has also been updated with some advice about what to do if leaving the home unoccupied. See Council Housing Repairs for details.

Caretakers at the Council’s sheltered housing accommodation are out gritting their sites.

Five 3 man crews are out gritting pavements and having gritted the central city and town areas early this morning are now dealing with sites further afield. See Gritting of roads and footpaths for details of the plan they are working to.

At present we are anticipating keeping the Council Offices open till the usual time of 5.15, but this will be on a skeleton service towards the end of the afternoon. However there is a (low) risk of more snow so we will be meeting again at 2pm to double check this approach. As always please do let us know if you are aware of any issues.