21 Mar 2025
Damian Gaskin looks at the reality behind the county council’s road safety petitions.
If democracy involves jumping through hoops, Hertfordshire County Council has turned it into an Olympic sport. A recent meeting, chaired with questionable enthusiasm by Cllr Phil Bibby, laid bare the tangled process residents face when campaigning for safer roads—especially in less politically favoured areas like New Greens, St Albans.
I am a local environmental and road safety campaigner, and have been advocating for urgently needed road crossings. At first I used Change.org, gathering a significant 1280 signatures. A commendable effort, you might think. But no: Hertfordshire County Council doesn’t recognise Change.org—the most widely used petition platform in the world.
Even more cynical was the apparent game-playing by local politicians. Liberal Democrat Cllr Helen Campbell eagerly signed the original doomed petition – great optics, zero risk. But when I was forced to pivot to the council-approved platform, which is as intuitive as deciphering hieroglyphics without a Rosetta Stone, she suddenly lost her enthusiasm. Her reason? The successful petition would eventually “come to me at County anyway”. A textbook lesson in political doublespeak.
Yet, ironically, Cllr Campbell’s glossy political literature, pushed through residents’ letterboxes, prominently promises her support for safer road crossings. Strangely, the material omits any mention of the petition or my work behind it. Even during the pivotal council meeting, she contributed virtually nothing beyond a six-word typed message supporting 20mph zones.
The council’s own petition platform is deliberately opaque: with cumbersome account setup, postcode barriers, and deliberately vague definitions of “local” designed to discourage petitioners. Despite this bureaucratic assault course, I still achieved the required 250 signatures.
But Hertfordshire’s hurdles didn’t stop there. On the scheduled Teams call, myself and three supportive local headteachers were kept waiting – a calculated tactic that left me panicking about having the correct link and missing the meeting entirely.
When finally admitted, I asked the chair, Cllr Bibby if he had read the dossier of local residents’ evidence. Cllr Bibby, disdainfully dismissed this extensive community testimony: “Couldn’t open the attachment.”
Instead, council officers, who clearly had not looked at it either, abruptly blindsided the headteachers with an interrogation about a vaguely recalled 2023 survey. Predictably, school leaders scrambled, distracted from advocating for immediate child safety. Another masterful dodge by HCC.
Cllr Campbell herself played a savvy political card – claiming “IT issues” – silent, invisible, and non-committal except for her six word message. Yet later, she proudly claimed credit on a New Greens residents’ Facebook group for attending this vital safety meeting online, neatly erasing my months of effort.
Ultimately, HCC managed the impressive feat of turning serious safety concerns into a political chess game, passing responsibility onto overstretched headteachers to go away and sort out their School Transport Plans while avoiding any tangible commitments. No minutes have yet emerged from the meeting, no follow-ups promised have materialised. No contact details promised have arrived.
This farce was not about improving road safety nor listening to residents. It was about tactics, hurdles, and political manoeuvring – democracy, Herts County Council style.
Click here to see the evidence behind the petition.
