It's Official: St Albans Highway And Pavement Repairs Short-Changed By 25%

12.00.00am UTC (GMT +0000) Wed 18th Jul 2007

The St Albans Highways Joint Member Panel meeting of 12th July saw figures which officially confirmed that St Albans is being short-changed in road and pavement repairs by the county council.

A report to the committee showed that St Albans has 16 percent of the reported pot-holes across the county - 3436 out of 21,753. But it only received £760,000 out of a total spend of £6.6 million across the county for patching and repair or 12 percent of the overall county budget.

"This equates to an under-funding of at least a quarter of a million pounds," said Sandy Walkington, Liberal Democrat parliamentary candidate for St Albans. "St Albans residents pay their council tax, the vast bulk of which goes to County Hall and they deserve their fair share in spending in return.

"All my discussions on the doorstep tell me that few things cause more anger to local residents than the state of our roads and pavement," Sandy said. "People want to have pride in their city and district. The look of the streetscape is integral to that - all the hard work that residents put into their homes and garden and shopkeepers put into their street fronts are nullified by cracked and broken roads and pavements.

"It is shocking that St Albans is being short-changed in this way by the County Hall administration. What is more, these figures only relate to pot-holes which are actually reported. My sense is that people in many areas have virtually given up on reporting on the state of their roads and pavements, such is the cynicism about the county council's interest in repairing them. Many people say it would be less work reporting on roads in good repair.

"The biggest hole of all is in the county's budget for St Albans," Sandy said. "How can St Albans aspire to being Hertfordshire's premier community when it is being stabbed in the back in this way by County Hall?

"We have been running a local petition to David Cameron to ask his Conservative colleagues at County Hall to get a grip on roads and pavements. It is one of the few examples where we can see Conservative government in action. We have been astonished by the response. Petition forms are flooding in from from residents across St Albans and the surrounding villages. The only place the Conservatives are in power locally is at County Hall and their record is simply not good enough."

County Councillor Allan Witherick added, "It was interesting to watch the Tory Councillor chairing the meeting admit his own astonishment at the differences across Hertfordshire. Obviously the Tories who run County Hall don't even bother informing their own colleagues locally when they under fund St Albans."

ENDS

Note to editors: The relevant report is on page 72 of the agenda for the 12th July meeting - http://www.stalbans.gov.uk/local-democracy/committees/agendas/highways/120707.pdf

For more information, please call Sandy Walkington on 07802 177317 or Cllr Allan Witherick on 07957464569