Moor End Road Bus Lane Payback Begins

After months of prevarication and indecision Hertfordshire County Council (HCC) has finally announced the pay back of penalties wrongly issued in respect of the defective Moor End Road Bus Lane scheme. Letters are being sent out to people who payed the penalties asking them either to apply for the refund of the money or to authorise HCC to pay the money instead to charity. The charity selected is a local one, the important and much appreciated Hospice of St Francis in Berkhamsted. In my view HCC could really not have made a better choice. The hospice will benefit from all the penalty money where motorists cannot now be traced, or who do not send in an application for refund. The hospice will of course also benefit when motorists voluntarily decide to authorise HCC to pass their refund on.

However, the council is working on redesigning the scheme and removing the old, confusing and long redundant yellow sign in Waterhouse Street. The obscuring covers have been removed from the existing signs and I really do not recommend anyone to try their luck going through the bus lane - except of course in a bus or taxi!

Cllr Stuart Pile, the Hertfordshire County Counciilor responsible for Highway - and responsible of course for this flawed scheme - has stoutly defended the council, himself and the scheme throughout. His line has been that there was never anything wrong with the scheme - just a couple of small errors in the Traffic Regulation Order. I just can't resist quoting the words of Roberto Perrone on Drivetime in the Spring, "Behave, Stuart!". The fact is that no-one but no-one ever looks through boring traffic orders unless there is something seriously wrong with the scheme itself. The drafting errors could have been quickly and cheaply put right long ago. I, 36,000 drivers and the Traffic Penalty Tribunal all maintain that the scheme was unlawfully signed - and that that is the main reason for the refund having to be made.

At a recent county council meeting I asked the Leader of the Council, Robert Gordon, if he would take steps to recover the losses to the council from the private company partner of Hertfordshire Highways which designed the defective scheme for HCC. He said it was HCC policy to try to recover costs arising from the errors of partners, consultant or contractors. Quite right, too.

But what Cllr Pile is saying now has acquired greater importance. If he goes round giving out in public that there was no technical error in the design and implementation the scheme, then he is going to frustrate Cllr Gordon's efforts to recover the losses - and the people of Hertfordshire will be the losers.

Behave, Stuart!