A week ago, an article appeared on-line in the Institute of Race Relation website. It began, “...If you want to feel and smell austerity, go to Hatfield”        Perhaps every local politician should read this and consider that their actions or inactions have conspired to systematically destroy a truly historic town simply to benefit a dreary but overly powerful neighbouring Garden City.  

The author was Jenny Bourne, a visitor to the town, whose observations will strike a deep chord with many long suffering Hatfield residents.  Under the headline The New Wasteland  Ms Bourne comments that it is poverty and not migration that is changing the nature of British towns. Whilst acknowledging the Olde English charm of Old Hatfield with its genteel, quaint old houses and pubs, and noting its former affluence during the aircraft industry days, reference is inevitably drawn to Hatfield’s neglected town centre:
“For everything hinges on the purpose built central shopping centre which is now a desolate pedestrianised howl. Many high streets are succumbing to the charity shop and the nail bar, but Hatfield can hardly boast even that…”
The market comes in for some criticism too:
“The outdoor market was always down-market but at least it was vibrant. Now it houses stalls of house clearance items, or a mishmash of out of date cheap food, batteries and garish fleece blankets. And in this soulless windswept area, remains just one traditional greengrocer…”
The article continues:
“And economic blight – or uneven development – is the other side of the coin of globalisation. Take a closer look at Hatfield. The death blow to its centre was dealt when Walmart moved in during the 1990s – with its bright, modern 24-hour Asda superstore and huge car park. (And it is Asda and two Tesco stores within a few miles of Hatfield that provide the newly arrived students and refugees with jobs at £5.83 per hour rising to £6.03 after 26 weeks – just above the minimum wage.) According to national Tory chairman and local MP Grant Shapps, Hatfield ‘is at the heart of a jobs revolution… twenty years ago it all looked very bleak. Today we’re a showcase for business success.’ But the much-vaunted 11,156 jobs in the new global industries’ business park are not by and large, and apart from Ocado’s distribution centre, going to locals at all. It is unlikely they would have the skills needed for twenty-first century high-tech businesses. These companies such as Pitney Bowes, PLC Logistics, Computacentre and Henkel usually bring their staff with them anyway. And the new housing built on the site is not going to local people either but to middle-class professionals who either work in the new jobs sector or commute from west Hatfield to jobs in St Albans or Watford; they are out of the reach of locals….
As one part of Hatfield thrives, another part appears to be being systematically disembowelled – and not just by private enterprise. The central Hertfordshire library hub and reference centre has just been relocated from south Hatfield to Welwyn Garden City. The local Tory-controlled Welwyn-Hatfield Council stands accused of funnelling funds to provide services in nearby leafy Welwyn Garden City at the expense of Hatfield. A letter to the St Albans and Harpenden Review makes the point: ‘ I find it incredible that the Council can justify … pampering WGC when Hatfield is virtually a “special needs case” … the Hatfield area is rated as the largest for children living in poverty throughout Hertfordshire!. A recent study revealed that a segment of Hatfield Central was in the top 20 per cent of nationally deprived wards. According to the Lib-Dem candidate for Hatfield South, the deprivation is much worse than figures suggest because the presence of the students actually ‘dilutes’ the statistics and hides Hatfield’s problems.”