News from Rickmansworth Liberal Democrats
This information was taken from 'Rickmansworth This Week e-news'. Please contact Les Mead at lesmead@ntlworld.com to get your own regular delivery. 'Ricky This Week' is also available on Twitter. @LesMead_
HS2 have informed Three Rivers District Council (TRDC) that they want additional land and they will be approaching landowners for permission to carry out exploratory surveys. No details will be available until the surveys have been done. No actual work is under way, nor has the HS2 Bill been approved yet.
TRDC has formally petitioned Parliament to get the plans improved to protect local people and businesses and the local environment. The Council unanimously approved the appointment of a Parliamentary agent to represent local interests.
News on Herts County Council
It is extremely disappointing that the provisional GCSE results from last summer show that 83% of children in care in Hertfordshire failed to achieve results essential if a student wants to take a higher course at college or go on to A-Levels.
The average performance of the rest of the students was that less than 35% failed to make the grade.
The results seriously limit the future career choices of a group of young people for whom the County Council has a statutory responsibility - improvement is very important and urgent.
The future of local bus services was discussed by HCC on Tuesday (25th Nov). It was reported that 12,000 local residents had petitioned against the proposed cuts and only 30 of the 4548 who responded to the consultation supported the proposals.
Proposals to protect local bus services were not accepted, and instead it was suggested that there should be further savings - the full range of cuts would be £1.5m, on top of the savings already made, totalling £2.2m.
Another consultation next year, between January and March, was proposed. It seems very unlikely, given the overwhelming opposition to the cuts already consulted on, that even more savage cuts, leaving some rural areas with no service at all, will be acceptable!
At this week's TRD Council meeting motions were overwhelmingly carried calling on HCC to:
- have a rethink about the proposed cuts to bus services which would have a devastating impact on the most vulnerable and
isolated communities and - to proceed with the provisional road repair programme rather than postponing it for a year.
This reflects the response of local residents on both issues.
Local residents and members of the Planning Committee are often frustrated by the lack of highways objections when they, knowing the site, feel there is a problem. There are approx. 400 planning applications pa in TRD that are referred for highways comments.
At a Briefing from HCC officers about the highways comments on planning applications, Councillors were told.the issues taken into account are road conditions, access and highway layout, trip generation, impact on highway, parking and servicing and accident data.
In 2013 there were 2320 personal injury accidents in Hertfordshire (168 of these in Three Rivers), 25 fatalities, 333 serious injuries and 1962.slighter injuries. Only 25% of these incidents occurred on the motorways or trunk roads.
The Highway Authority (HCC) advise that it must not object to development unless the highway impact would be really 'severe'.
Councillors were interested to learn that there is no statutory definition of a highway other than a route over which the 'public at large'can pass and re-pass as frequently as they wish without hindrance or charge.
- Herts County Council fault reporting www.hertsdirect.org/faultreporting/