14 Mar 2024
A proposed meeting between rail freight developers Segro and local residents has been pushed back until at least late spring or even early summer.
When St Albans MP Daisy Cooper met with the company in November, she said they agreed to hold a community meeting to share information about their work and allow residents the chance to ask pertinent questions.
This was initially pencilled in for January, but then pushed back until early March – with a meeting at Greenwood Park then cancelled – but now the idea of a community meeting has been replaced with a public exhibition, which could still be several months away.
A spokesperson for Segro said: “We are engaging with residents and have been doing so since September 2023. Our primary focus is to ensure that residents that live close to the site boundary are kept informed of site preparation work that is being undertaken close to their property. We have appointed a dedicated public liaison officer who is helping to build long term relations with the local community, launched a new website that enables residents to pose any questions or concerns they have, and recruited a new community officer to accelerate our engagement with local charities to see how they can benefit from our Community Investment Programme.
“Our commitment to hold a public exhibition at a mutually convenient time also remains. We are continuing to liaise with all parties to agree the precise timing, however, now we have
further clarity on the timetable for the judicial review hearing it is our intention to reschedule the exhibition to take place in late spring/early summer.”
The spokesperson also referred to what has previously been called a strategic rail freight interchange as “Segro Logistics Park Radlett”, removing any reference to rail for the first time.
Terrie Smith, one of the leaders of the Save St Albans: Fight the Freight campaign said: “This is just more public relations flim-flam from Segro. Nothing in their words or actions suggests they are sincere about engaging with local people.
“They have reneged on a commitment to set up liaison groups with residents and although they have held a couple of one-on-one meetings, they have not set up any lines of dialogue with people living alongside the site. The first those residents know about trees being chopped down or fences being put up just yards from their homes is when they see it happen. Those residents certainly don’t feel they are Segro’s ‘primary focus’.
“Even the proposed and delayed public exhibition shows a failure to engage. People don’t want an exhibition where Segro tell them what Segro wants them to know. They want proper consultation and an on-going two-way dialogue where Segro, and not their PR team. answer questions that matter to the community.”
MP Daisy Cooper said: “It’s really disappointing that having agreed to attend a public meeting early in the new year, Segro have kept stalling on that promise. I know they’ve contacted some of the local organisations I suggested, but as I’ve made abundantly clear, there are many hundreds of residents disrupted by their work who have questions they want to ask.
“The judicial review brought by Fight The Freight isn’t news to the developers. Segro knew about it when I met them last November. To be frank, concerns about what the court might decide don’t seem to have held them back from their construction work.
“In fact, as soon as HCC signed the dotted line to sell the land, Segro wasted no time in putting up fences and rolling out their bulldozers, but when it comes to engaging with the public, they’ve dragged their heels.
“I offered to arrange for them to attend the public meeting on 3rd March, but they didn’t even bother to reply.
“Their planned exhibition in summer will be more than six months since Segro started work on the site. It’s hard for me to understand why they’re refusing to meet with the community before then.
“I was prepared to engage with Segro in good faith, but so far their actions leave a lot to be desired.”
