01 Feb 2024
Historic 100-year-old features have been ripped up from one of St Albans’ most prestigious roads – and will be re-used by Herts Highways elsewhere in the county.
The stone setts – large heritage cobbles used to line roads and dropped kerbs in Park Avenue – have been dug up and either destroyed or shipped outside the district.
Resident David Kaloczi, who has been campaigning to save the setts for years, said resurfacing the entire road will cost around £140K, and the work went ahead without consultation with local residents.
“Despite no reason to destroy perfectly good stone sett cobbled dropped kerbs – with hundreds of similar ones remaining in situ across the district – Herts Highways started smashing them up while I was out. The Highways engineer in charge of the site had an hour earlier been advised that the kerbs were staying, and the leader of HCC was in agreement that he had no issues with the setts remaining.”
When he tried to explain to Highways contractors that they were making a terrible mistake they called the police to the scene, claiming he was creating a health and safety risk to himself and his workforce.
A Facebook post from Clarence and St Peter’s Liberal Democrats on January 12 stated: “Much needed road resurfacing works are due to begin on Park Avenue soon. We know there is some interest in these works as we’d all like to ensure we can retain the traditional setts that are here now.
“We see no reason for them to be removed and are accordingly lobbying Herts county council for a change of heart on this matter.”
However, despite their efforts the work went ahead anyway, with HCC claiming they had the support of the majority of residents in Park Avenue.
A spokesperson for Hertfordshire County Council said: “The profile of Park Avenue in St Albans, particularly the high crown, has been causing access issues for disabled residents with special access needs, and investigations into this problem also found other structural issues. As a result, we need to reshape and resurface the road to make it more accessible, and as part of this we need to change the levels of the drainage channels.
“When we are planning works in historic streets in places like St Albans, our engineers take the existing environment into account and will usually look to retain historic sett channels unless it is necessary to remove them. In this case our Highways team looked into the possibility of retaining the granite setts in Park Avenue, however due to the nature of the works needed, reluctantly concluded that this was not feasible.
“The majority of local residents support the work and have been keen for it to go ahead.
“The setts that have been removed and are in good enough condition will be reused elsewhere.”
Mr Kaloczi added: “As far as I’m aware we have one resident with severe mobility issues and of course the ramp crossover for them and anyone else with access issues needs resolving.
“But we have a street WhatsApp group, and the vast majority of residents actually wanted the setts retained. Given the county council didn’t ask anyone for their opinion where did they get their information from?
“The road was in good order and certainly not like so many others surrounding that desperately require work.
”I’m not sure why our county councillor Chris White signed off this work knowing full well residents wanted the setts to remain. The stone sett dropped kerbs were also in good order and didn’t require destroying. These are a feature right across our district, but we know they will never be seen again.
“We have never had drainage issues on our street. This wasteful and unnecessary work can’t continue. Herts Highways needs to start considering the environment, stop wasting public money, and start respecting our heritage.”
”I remain hopeful that the contractors and HCC will look to re-instate some of the dropped kerb setts as an agreed solution to this very unfortunate situation that could have easily been avoided.”
Cllr White responded: “The road does need resurfacing because of the issues with the camber, but I think county are being more difficult than they need to be about preserving the setts and I have protested on that basis. They came back and said that I supported the whole project, which I did but there’s detail versus the generality.”
