05 Oct 2023
Questions have been asked about the protection of great-crested newts believed to be living on the site of Park Street’s proposed rail freight depot, and an historic gun turret in situ near the land.
The Allan-Williams Turret, a Grade II listed gun turret, was originally constructed to defend Radlett Airfield and particularly the Handley Page construction hangars during the Second World War. It is one of a very small number of surviving examples of this rare form of gun emplacement; and even more rarely in situ.
Great-crested newts have also been reported in ponds on the land, and environmentalists are worried that they may be disturbed by the construction work on the new terminal.
A spokesperson for developer Segro said: “No ponds have been filled in as part of the enabling works at the Radlett Aerodrome site. The ground investigation works are being overseen by an ecologist and are in line with our planning permission and the requirements of Natural England.
“Our planning permission requires archaeological investigation survey works to be carried out.
“The scope of the works has been agreed with appropriate authorities and the survey works are currently underway with the active involvement of the county archaeologist.
“We have created a number of new ponds on site to provide habitats for great crested newts and allow time for them to naturalise in readiness for translocation next year of any great crested newts we find. We have also erected newt fencing to protect any great crested newts during current and immediately anticipated on site activities.
“We are aware of the Second World War gun turret, which is located on highway land. This falls outside of the works area for the scheme, so will not be affected by the development.”
Meanwhile, campaigners fear there has been an attempt to sabotage their efforts to raise awareness of the impact of the development. As well as leafletting homes around Park Street and Frogmore, the Save St Albans: Fight the Freight group produced some eye catching campaign boards which they attached to lamp-posts in the village. But within hours of the boards going up, ten had mysteriously disappeared.
“It’s very frustrating,” said Terrie Smith from Save St Albans: Fight the Freight. “ We want to get the message across that this fight is not over but it feels as though someone doesn’t want that message to get through.
“Despite that, we’ve been really heartened by the response and the huge number of donations.”
If the rail freight terminal goes ahead it will see five huge 20 metre high warehouses on the site. The largest will be bigger than Terminal 5 at Heathrow. Forecasts also predict a 35% increase in traffic on local roads, with 3,000 additional HGV movements and at least an extra 7,000 cars and vans moving in and out of the site.
When local aerospace manufacturer, Handley Page, went into liquidation, it sold the land to Redland for mineral extraction to build the M25. A condition of this sale was that the land must be returned by Redland to green space and then ‘sold’ to HCC for £1 to protect the land as public open space. HCC has now sold it to Segro for £34m, compared to the £150m-£225m it is expected it would have achieved if it had been sold on the open market.
