23 Apr 2025
County Hall has been called to task over the dangerous state of a major route in and out of St Albans.
Local campaigner Andy Love has approached Herts county council leader Richard Roberts and Cllr Phil Bibby, executive member for highways and transport, to raise awareness of the road surface of St Julian’s Hill, the part of Watling Street (A5183) shortly before Park Street roundabout.
He said: “I’ve been asked by many residents and concerned parents to bring to your attention regarding the appalling and dangerous condition of St Julian’s Hill road surface, which leads down to the Park Street roundabout.
“There are two large areas of badly worn road surface on this short stretch, that drivers are taking avoiding action so as not to either damage or lose control of their vehicles. I have looked online at Herts Highways’ fault reporting tool and it appears that the majority of the cases reporting potholes on this stretch of road have been closed although the large worn out areas of road surface remain unrepaired.
“This section of the A5183 has been in this condition for several months so strangely it appears that Highways has deemed that the road doesn’t require resurfacing or repair!
“In my opinion, it is totally unacceptable that such a busy stretch of road like St Julian’s Hill, which is also used by many cyclists, remains unrepaired especially given that such a badly worn road surface will likely increase the likelihood of there being a serious accident or even fatalities!
“I must also stress that there are NO warning signs alerting drivers and cyclists of the impending condition of the poor road surface.
“The road has a national speed limit at this point so cars potentially could be travelling up to 60mph when they hit the section of road with the badly worn surface.”
Herts county council took several weeks to respond our request for comment on this issue, but eventually we received a reply.
A spokesperson for Hertfordshire County Council said: “We will be carrying out localised patching works on this stretch of road in the coming months to repair a number of defects identified on the hill. We are also looking at carrying out wider resurfacing works in future years, although we don’t have confirmed plans at the moment.
“We encourage road users to report potholes, or any other defect, to us online at www.hertfordshire.gov.uk/highwayfaults This ensures that they are in our system and, even if we can’t repair them immediately, we can use the information to help us plan our maintenance programmes.”
