The St Albans Review received a letter last week from an anonymous local resident arguing that building houses on the London Road site would cause more traffic problems that a new supermarket. Here are a few reasons why this isn't the case:
1. The London Road site is extremely well positioned for access to the Thameslink railway station and bus interchange and is also a 10-15 minute walk from the centre of St Albans and the Abbey Station. Most people living in the area don't drive to work and we'd assume the same would be true of new residents. St Albans has to build more houses - if they are not built here but on the green belt away from public transport there will be a much greater increase in traffic.
2. Even if 100 or so people did drive to work from these houses, this is a fraction of the 7,000 car movements Tesco expect to generate each day (500 car parking spaces occupied for an hour each over a 14+ hour day). Stop Tesco's traffic survey shows that this could easily double the number of cars using London Road.
Finally, its a pity that the correspondent chose not to reveal his or her name - it leads to all sorts of conspiracy theories - do they work for Tesco for example?
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2 comments:
"Most people living in the area don't drive to work"
Do we have any evidence of that? It would be nice to be able to refute the 'houses create traffic too' comment with well-based numbers.
Do we have an estimate of how many houses could be built on the site? Allowing for a Tesco Local, naturally, and possibly a school.
Pete
Why do local papers publish anonymous letters? The editor of the Herts Ad refuses to protect the identity of its correspondents while the editor of its sister title has no such scruples - in any given week there will usually be a couple of "name and address supplied" letters in the Welwyn Hatfield Times. And the Review - does it have an editorial policy about requests for anonymity?
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