November 2007

I was chatting to a new resident the other day and wondered what had brought him to the area as a Canadian.
After he told me that his property was built in the year dot, destroyed a few hundred years later during our religious problems, rebuilt and now refurbished he loved the area and our quaint little town and quirks.

He cannot understand how part of his house is in Dacorum, the other side of the room in Aylesbury Vale and they collect his rubbish, but he remains in Hertfordshire (or should that be Hart ford shire) as an address. He can't even find the name of the road he lives in apart from the number although I'm not sure that matters as the hose is fairly distinctive (and you can catch a bus from outside my house to outside his, so what's the problem?).

Anyway, we moved onto the lovely shops, canal-side, restaurants and then the questions started. Why doesn't the by-pass have Berkhamsted signed?, why isn't there an underpass in the centre of town either for traffic or pedestrians or perhaps a bridge?, why does the footpath slope making it difficult to walk along?, why do they not have 'proper crossings' for pedestrians as no one knows whether to mow walkers down as they wonder aimlessly across the road into the traffic stopped by those 'crazy traffic lights' in the centre of town. Apparently, our traffic lights are well known by all his friends as the slowest in the county. Oh, and why aren't the roundabouts painted white so you can see them?

I had to explain that Berkhamsted is the town they experiment with, as we seem to accept anything without a murmur. The town isn't signs from the bypass as they wanted traffic to come in from either end rather than down directly to the centre. The traffic lights have been adjusted (wonderment on face!) as they were even worse. I did point out that when I was a kid, I used to enjoy changing the lights by jumping on the air tubes which altered the lights and before the 'improvements', they had just two phases, up/down and left/right.

The pedestrians had to have a 'time slot' to cross the road as after the bypass was built, all the traffic would disappear and to this end the road was narrowed and 'traffic calming' measures such as the wide humps, 'dot humps' (aka mini roundabouts) and the speed limit was increased to 20 miles per hour. Those vehicles that managed to get into town, would be charged in 12 minute pieces to 'rest' in marked spaces not actually large enough for most vehicles as the road had been narrowed (remember?).
I explained that because the town had a sewage and water system that was installed about 100 years ago, the main junction had vehicles and pedestrians on top with pipes and cables underneath so an underpass wasn't really an option. I mentioned that overhead bridges don't really go with a conservation area which prompted yet another question -' is the whole town a conservation area and can't be changed'? (I wish, I muttered under my breath!) to which I replied that it wasn't.

I thought I might bring in the 'town square' idea and how there were two schools of thought on how to improve the 60's town centre 'improvements'. After filling him in on the Borough Councils plans to build a nice large supermarket around Water Lane I outlined the town square ideas of the 1920's (pointing him the direction of the December issue of the 'Review') and the more recent Town Council idea.

At this point, he was still trying to get his head round how the Government can be responsible for the highway improvements connected with the building of the bypass, the County Council responsible for roads, the Borough Council can rip the town apart under the guise of improvements and the Town Council can make a noise, but not actually be able to stop anything. He felt that it would be a great idea to develop the area for leisure primarily rather than more brick, mortar and tarmac.

I wonder if he has any money?