Social distancing experiment starts Tuesday: major road changes in George Street, High Street, Market Place and Hatfield Road

  • Herts County Council has launched a “Social Distancing in the Highway” public health-related initiative. 
  • Essentially, vehicular movements on certain roads across the county will be restricted in order to yield more “road space” for pedestrians. 
  • The main reason for the initiative is to facilitate social distancing where current pavement width simply does not allow this.
  • St Albans schemes are due to be put in place from Tuesday 26 May

Further information:

HCC are working on other streets across the county. A B-List is being drawn up. It will include locations deemed to have less-compromised footways, but nevertheless which may benefit from similar interventions. The C-List will be a schedule of roads suggested or otherwise considered for some sort of treatment, which HCC has reviewed but concluded they cannot take forward.

The three current SADC A-List locations are:

Harpenden: Bowers Parade (Vaughan Road to no. 37 Bowers Parade) – on-street parking bay closures, for length of Bowers Parade.

St Albans Town Centre: George Street, High Street and Market Place/City Centre – road closures, to pedestrianise city centre roads.

Hatfield Road: (Sutton Road Roundabout to Clarence Road) – closure of on-street parking outside shops.

This work is being led by county council officers and is extremely fast-paced in nature. Important information is emerging all the time, virtually on a daily basis. Cross-county meetings now take place weekly. 

Additional points to note:

  • HCC will be monitoring road and crossings usage post-implementation. That will include possible phase changes to traffic lights and crossing demand buttons.
  • There is a recognition that these interventions will push parking demand back into off-street car parks in some instances. 
  • Where road closures take place, the intention is to ensure access is maintained for deliveries, waste collection, street cleaning and, of course, emergency response vehicles.

6 thoughts on “Social distancing experiment starts Tuesday: major road changes in George Street, High Street, Market Place and Hatfield Road

  1. HEIDI says:

    This is good news. Will there be more cycle lanes and places to lock bikes near shops and in city centre? Atm there only a cycle lane on the London Road, which ends near Orient Close roundabout. This should be included in the plan.

  2. Anne.M.Scanlan says:

    When will the potholes in Hatfield Road be done?! Whilst these ‘social distancing’ 0regs are being implemented,they are a little late in the life of this Pandemic.
    Potholes could be done with this reg in place.! Get on with practical solutions.
    A terrible state of affairs all these week. They could have been repaired during this lockdown period ,when this major city road was much quieter and would cause less disruption. The worst section is from Ashley Road down to Longacres!
    The Hatfield Road pavements
    No problem with closing parking areas on our city streets.
    Should never have allowed parking on both sides over all these years bottle necks created daily because of this.Get people out if their cars and walk to their local neighbour hood shops.
    Morrisons car park allows a 2 or 3 hour parking slot,walk up to the shops, restaurants & Tesco from there
    No doubt you’ll tell me this is a County Highways maintenance matter.

    However I am using this opportunity as a St.Albans citizen since the 1968,living at home on the Verulam Estate,educated locally, away for study,back to work & marry, first marital home in Harpenden for 19 yrs…..back to St.Albans in 2006……so it is fair to say I have seen lots of changes!
    Also with my husband ,totally involved in city community work.
    Why is building work on Beaumont School playing fields. ..carrying on past noon on a Saturday & the traffic light system is another issue.
    Anyway, thank you for listening,I just wanted to vent my feelings about the way my city home is going .Always been Liberal Democrat supporters
    We STILL have our own crusade to fight, that of Road Adoption in Kay Walk & Wynches Farm Drive,been here 14yrs and not getting much help! But that story is for another day!
    Perhaps I should become a local councillor in the future, in my 60’s!
    Thanks ,
    Anne.M.Scanlan.

  3. Cllr Iqbal Zia says:

    Hatfield Road closure from sutton road to clarence road will not be seen by the communities a favoured response or action

    There are many take aways run by Asian Businesses and Three and Four Asian Food /convenient store. This step is not well thought out ignoring the community need and support.

    Looking ahead there are 2 Islamic centres 2 churches and when we ease the lockdown or open these centres then we will need a different plan.

    I had received a few messages requesting that this should be reviewed.

    Councillor Iqbal Zia
    Ashley Ward.

    St Albans City and Districr Council

  4. Jonathan Hemmant says:

    Utter idiocy to have these restrictions on hatfield road and elsewhere. The barriers are simply an unnecessary inconveniance. Pavements have never been busy enough Herę to warrant this. It will only cause loss of trade to local business and parking problems in local area with no benefit. Whose bright idea was this? Please can someone let me know so i dont mąkę the mistake of voting for them

  5. Rachel says:

    This has just encouraged groups of young drinkers to loiter long after last orders, making noise and floating social distancing rules. It has also reduced zone b parking spaces in St Albans city centre making it more difficult to find a space. As a blue badge user, this has made my life more difficult

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