St Albans City and District Council is to urgently investigate the emissions benefits of asking car drivers to switch off their engines while waiting at the Peahen Junction lights on Holywell Hill, St Albans as part of plans to improve air quality in St Albans City Centre.

The move follows a meeting between officers from Herts Highways and the Environmental Health department of the District Council, local councillors and a representative of the Holywell Hill Action Group on 22 December.

The Council has already extended the area covered by the Air Quality Management Area Order for the Peahen crossroads, a traffic hotspot in the city. It has also drawn up an action plan setting out various short and long-term steps to help reduce air pollution in St Albans. This was approved at Cabinet on 8 December 2009.

Councillor Robert Donald, Leader of the Council, said: “As an immediate interim action, I have asked council officers following this meeting to urgently investigate the emissions benefits of asking drivers to switch off car engines while waiting at the Peahen Junction lights, as environmental technical advice on this action currently appears divided. If it can be shown to be self-evidently beneficial we have agreed with Hertfordshire Highways that they will provide signage requesting drivers to take this preventative action. I am not aware that this particular measure has been trialled anywhere else in the UK for this environmental reason to date.”

The meeting also considered the possible pedestrianisation of St Peter’s Street and Market Place. Before taking this any further, Herts Highways will be modelling traffic flows and various traffic management options will be used to develop a model to assess their impact on surrounding roads. This will be followed by a public consultation in the summer if it is decided to take forward this idea any further. Another possible measure that was discussed was a mini park and ride scheme around St Albans. Herts Highways will initially be conducting a feasibility study to assess whether this is at all viable. No decisions have yet been taken on either of these possible solutions.

Councillor Robert Donald, added: ”This plan sets out clearly what actions we can take to improve air quality in the vicinity of the Peahen junction. Reducing congestion and improving air quality in the city centre is a major challenge for the City and District.

“Through the City Vision project, we have been looking at the future planning and development of St Albans and ways to encourage more people to travel around it by bus, cycle or on foot.

“We are also working hard with our partners to address traffic congestion and CO2 emissions particularly in the city centre. Earlier, this year we set up a new transport partnership called Network St Albans which brings together the District Council, Hertfordshire County Council, the University of Hertfordshire and local bus and rail companies to consider how best to cut traffic related road congestion and air and noise pollution. It is already looking at creating a better bus network with integrated ticketing and new bus maps; providing more real time travel information, improved junction traffic flows and a better network of pedestrian and cycle routes; and investigating the feasibility of other vehicle congestion reduction measures.

Councillor Geoff Churchard, Portfolio Holder for Environment and Sustainability at St Albans City and District Council, said: “Air quality is a serious concern for people who live and work on Holywell Hill and around the Peahen and we will be working with them, through the action plan, to resolve this issue.”

We are getting mixed reports about gritting and snow clearance across the county. Clearly there was a serious incident in Hunton Bridge and roads in St Albans are pretty but in quite a state. We understand that the priority must be to salt main roads, but certainly these were not in a good way at midnight last night.

Please send us any updates, including photos, so that we can form a clear picture and if necessary lobby the county council for more effort.

Message from the District Council

Whilst the District Council is responsible for street name plates, the other signs we see on the public highway are mostly the responsibility of Hertfordshire Highways.

The majority of the signs are there for a legitimate purpose but there are some which were erected to give advance warning of new changes in speed limit, road layout etc. The necessity to have these signs diminishes with time, and whilst a sign saying new road layout would be appropriate for several months after a change is made, it is not appropriate several years later. The District Council is therefore helping to compile a list of such signs which will be forwarded to Hertfordshire Highways to allow them to programme their removal.

Other examples might include developers’ signs when the site is complete and the new residents have moved in. Sometimes public utility companies leave signs behind when they have been working in the District.

Please let us know if there are any you wish us to draw to the attention of either council.

Featured below are Cllrs Jack Pia, Michael Green and Geoff Churchard, who attended Saturday’s climate change march in London.

Briefing note from the county council

There are approximately 2500 highway structures on the local road network in Hertfordshire of which 1700 are owned by HCC. The remainder are owned by third parties such as Network Rail, British Waterways or District Councils. Highways Structures typically include for Bridges, Culverts, Retaining Wall, Gantries and Tunnels.

Hertfordshire Highways has a dedicated structures team to look after County bridges stock but not responsible for the condition survey of the private bridges.
For the County bridges, every structure is visually inspected on a biennial cycle. The inspection results are recorded to nationally agreed standards where a bridge condition indicator (score) is determined. The current bridge condition indicator for Hertfordshire bridges stock is 87/100, which is ranked as good.

In Hertfordshire, we do not have such major rivers (or coasts) to exacerbate the flood risks and our bridges are less exposed to flooding dangers as compared to other parts of the Country. However, we are not complacent on the above safety issue and have opted for a further under water type inspection to complement our above water level visual inspections. We typically keep a list of those structures with a potential scour problem (due to nature of the watercourse they cross) and we carry out a detailed under water inspection to guard against scour to such bridge foundations.

This year’s cycle of diving inspection is programmed to be complete by April 2010.

The Liberal Democrats have written to the county council today to ask for assurances over the condition of bridges in Hertfordshire.

Group Leader Chris White said: ‘The rains in Cumbria were a wake up call. Hertfordshire has also been recently flooded and - as the climate changes - will no doubt flood again.

‘I think the public will want assurances that our bridges are in reasonable condition and are not in danger of being swept away.’

The County Council’s urban transport plan is now up on the web.

http://www.hertsdirect.org/docs/pdf/s/stautp2009.pdf

Chris White has today slammed the current consultation over housing numbers which could see an ADDITIONAL 9,500 homes built in the St Albans area - over and above the already excessive targets previously set by the East of England Regional Assembly.

Chris, speaking at the County Council’s Environment and Planning Panel, said: ‘The original figures were already based on inflated demand - fuelled by the tendency of irresponsible bankers to lend to home buyers who can’t afford it. It beggars belief that this situation will be allowed to continue unchecked even if the bankers’ friends - the Tories - were to win the next election.’

He added: ‘St Albans in particular is likely to suffer under these plans: it cannot cope with a total of 16,480 extra homes without entirely grinding to a halt. I note that there are no significant government plans to improve public transport. After all they have handed over all our money to the bankers - the same people who caused the inflated growth figures in the first place.’

County council officials have today accepted that the council needs to respond to Liberal Democrat demands to join the 10:10 environmental campaign.

Chris White commented: ‘We raised a question about this at the last council meeting and I guess we should be pleased that we got any reaction at all. But all we are getting at this stage is a promise of a report at the January meeting of the Environment and Planning Panel. The council frankly needs to get a move on. After all this is supposed to be a commitment to cut emissions by 10% in 2010.’

For more information on 10:10: http://www.1010uk.org/

Grants for loft and cavity wall insulation and solar panels are among the energy efficiency measures that are being offered to homeowners and tenants living in the St Albans and City District, as part of an initiative to cut carbon dioxide emissions and reduce fuel poverty.

St Albans City and District Council is one of 15 local authorities across Hertfordshire and Essex that have together obtained £6.6million worth of government funding to help install a range of energy efficiency and renewable energy measures for private homeowners, leaseholders and tenants over a two-year period. Together they have formed Herts Essex Energy Partnership (HEEP) which has appointed Climate Energy to manage the initiative, oversee the works, appoint contractors, grant payments and market the scheme.

Homeowners in receipt of qualifying benefits or who are aged 70 years or more will be eligible to receive free energy-saving measures such as loft and cavity wall insulation, heating system upgrades, and renewable technologies such as solar panels, subject to the availability of funding, qualifying criteria and a technical survey.

Those who are not in receipt of benefits are entitled to loft or cavity wall insulation at subsidised prices that start at £99. In addition, they may be eligible to receive grants and interest free loans to cover the cost of installing renewable technologies and heating upgrades, again subject to the availability of funding, qualifying criteria and a technical survey.

Cllr Mike Ellis, Portfolio Holder for Environment and Sustainability at St Albans City and District Council, said: “I would commend this scheme to residents. It will help homeowners improve the energy efficiency of their homes and reduce their fuel bills. It will also help reduce the number of households that suffer from fuel poverty and bring down the carbon emissions of the district.”

It is estimated that 13,500 households across Hertfordshire and Essex will benefit from this package of measures. The aim is to increase the energy ratings of these homes, as measured by the government’s Standard Assessment Procedure (SAP), to more than 65, which would help reduce their carbon dioxide emissions by 25% on average. This would result in the scheme producing a combined reduction of approximately 10,000 tonnes of CO2 per annum.

Residents who are interested in the scheme should call 0800 980 6026, quoting STA1009, or go to www.heepgrant.org.