12 Oct 2023
St Albans MP Daisy Cooper has met with Park Street residents to discuss the impact of the rail freight development on their lives and homes, and promised to take action to ensure planning conditions were enforced.
Speaking to neighbours in Hampden Place, whose houses back onto the site, she told them: “There’s one battle that I’m continuing to fight which is that as the planning authority it’s now the district council’s responsibility to ensure that the planning conditions that were put in place by the Secretary of State are actually enforced.
“Unfortunately the local council hasn’t been given any extra resources by the government to make sure that that happens, so there’s a bit of a David and Goliath fight going on there.
“One of the things that I am pressing is for the government to make sure that our local council has got the resources it needs to make sure they do follow the conditions, because otherwise it’s going to have to be us, the taxpayers in St Albans that have to pay for that.
“During my only meeting with Segro – when we were challenging them about the rail freight depot and telling them that we didn’t want it – they did agree to set up a residents liaison committee, and it strikes me that given work is now underway, it would be a helpful thing to get that group up and running.
“Obviously I can get Segro and Park Street Residents Association to work together, but clearly where there are particular roads and communities like this that are very acutely affected because of their proximity to the site, it might be that they need to have their own representation in addition to other people from across the rest of Park Street.”
Residents have also expressed concerns over the future of an artificial bund – an embankment created to shield residents from the noise of the nearby motorway – and whether it would be reduced in size or relocated.
Daisy added: “On the question of the bund, it’s very clear to me that the site manager doesn’t know what’s going to happen with it, he doesn’t know whether it’s going to go higher or lower, or whether it’s going to get moved. His job at the moment is simply to put that boarding up and so he’s not the person we need to ask.
“I think there are also concerns about what happens when the build starts to happen, in terms of the proximity, the light pollution, the noise pollution. I think that’s what I’m hearing, is that you’re concerned about what’s about to come, not what’s happened so far.”
Cllr Nuala Webb, one of the leaders of Fight the Freight, said: “ It’s good that someone is properly listening to and trying to address the concerns of those residents most directly affected by this.
“They’ve been ignored by Herts county council, ignored by the Secretary of State and ignored by Segro who have done nothing to explain what’s happening in land outside these people’s windows.
“It brings into focus the folly of trying to build this monstrosity directly next door to housing. No other freight terminal in the country has housing so close. Segro are likely to continue initial ground works while the legal process that could stop the development continues and it’s important there’s proper liaison with the people who live alongside it.”
Meanwhile, further details have emerged relating to the judicial review lodged by campaign group Save St Albans: Fight the Freight against HCC’s sale of the former Radlett Aerodrome site.
The key issue in their argument is the status of the land and why it was originally bought by HCC.
Campaigners claim it was bought to reserve its status as Metropolitan Green Belt and open space for the local community, based on the Metropolitan Green Belt Act 1938 and the Open Space Act 1906.
When the land ownership was transferred it was described twice as ‘open space’ which creates a statutory trust and can only be sold by the local authority if certain steps set out in these pieces of legislation are carried out.
This includes obtaining written permission from a government minister or advertising the land and public consultation in the weeks prior to the sale – neither of which was done when HCC sold the land to Segro, nor can it be done retrospectively.
The Supreme Court ruling in the case of Day vs Shropshire (March 2023) makes it very clear that without carrying out these steps the land cannot be removed from its public statutory trust status and warns local authorities to check very carefully the legal status of the land prior to sale.
If Fight the Freight win the judicial review the land cannot be developed. HCC has several weeks to respond with their argument, and then Fight the Freight can counter this response. All documentation from both sides will be then submitted to a judge for review and a decision on whether it will be heard in court.
