04 Jul 2025
Herts Highways have finally acted to repair a major route in and out of St Albans which has been riddled with potholes for months.
Local campaigner Andy Love wanted to raise awareness of the road surface of St Julian’s Hill, the part of Watling Street (A5183) shortly before Park Street roundabout, and contacted the St Albans Times to highlight the issue.
Now the worst sections of road leading down to the Park Street roundabout have been repaired and resurfaced.
Andy said: “I’m so grateful to the St Albans Times helping to raise the profile for those fed-up with the dreadful state of St Julian’s Hill road surface and specifically those that had reported this section of road during the last six months using the online Highways fault reporting tool, only to be notified that it was either being looked into or had been resolved as not needing immediate attention.
“Although it has taken much longer to have these repairs undertaken than many would have hoped for or expected, I do understand that this work would have needed to be to be properly drawn up, signed off and fitted into Highways’ planned works and repairs schedules.
“The timing of these repairs also means that the upgrade works on the Park Street roundabout, that are due to start later this summer, will hopefully take less time and cause less inconvenience because these repairs were undertaken beforehand and not during the upgrades. The upgrades for the Park Street roundabout will include the introduction of traffic lights to all but two exits of the roundabout, with a requirement for the speed limit to be reduced to 50mph for all approaches and exits that currently have a higher speed limit.
“A speed limit reduction on this busy area of road infrastructure in south St Albans should help to improve road safety and also reduce vehicle emissions and noise pollution.”
