Letter to Derrick Ashley & Councillors (From St Albans & Harpenden Review)

Letter to Derrick Ashley & Councillors

5:42pm Friday 27th January 2012 in Hatfield Letters

TO:Derrick Ashley

{Cabinet and Waste Panel and Environment & Planning Panel}

and

HATFIELD AND WELHAM GREEN MEMBERS OF WEL/HAT BOROUGH COUNCIL

The New Barnfield centre in South Hatfield should not be listed as a waste site. It is not suitable for waste treatment of any kind. The site and the area around New Barnfield is an area which has housing, work-places, recreational areas, educational facilities, and wild-life.

The health and well-being of people using this area would be badly affected by the noise and pollution caused by increased traffic to any type of waste site, and also by pollution from an incinerator.

Southfield School

This school is immediately adjoining the site, on the slip-road leading up to the site.

The school is for primary age children with special needs, including autistic children.

The school was purpose-built in 1995.

The government document “A Children’s Environment and Health Strategy for the U.K.” says, page 26, that “air pollution from vehicle exhausts, industry and the products of combustion, has been associated with a range of respiratory effects in children”. It recommends, page 29, “siting of new schools, childcare facilities and play areas should include an assessment of the surrounding air quality”, so Herts CC should not be causing deterioration in the air quality near a school.

Noise pollution would be particularly disturbing to children with special needs.

Millwards Estate and the Far End and “Fields” Residential Areas

The residential area of the Millwards estate is right on the roundabout that leads up to the site.

The residential area of Far End and the “Fields” streets runs along the side of South Way, which would carry all the traffic to the site.

The people in these areas already suffer noise and other pollution from quite heavy traffic, including lorries going to the Tesco depot in the Travellers Lane Employment Area.

The Library Resources Centre and the Park Education Centre

The site is not a “former” central resources library as is claimed on page 47 of the Waste Planning Consultation document. The Hertfordshire Central Resources Library is now on the site. This is a very useful and pleasant facility for the people of the South Hatfield area, as well as for the whole county.

This is the largest lending library in the County, and also has a large reference and business library, and a special performing arts library, where music and plays can be borrowed. Residents can also use the computers here, find quiet reading and working space, and read the collection of newspapers and magazines. There is also an Art Collection here, the Schools Library Service, and the Mobile Library Service, for which the vans park on the site.

On the site there is also the Park Education Centre, which is a unit for secondary school pupils who have had problems in mainstream education.

Green Belt and Wild Life Sites

The whole area around and including New Barnfield is in the Green Belt, and any building has to be on the footprint of the present buildings (as noted on page 48 of the Waste Planning Consultation document.) It is also part of the Watling Chase Community Forest.

A number of wild-life areas are on or next to the site. These include WS100 Grasslands North of Parsonage Road, WS98 New Barnfield Meadow, and WS101 South Way Southern Road Verge. WS202, Travellers Lane Grasslands, Ponds and Wildlife site, is particularly important. Local people enjoy looking at wild-life here, including trees and birds. Warblers nest here, and there are carp in Travellers Lane pond (known as Bunchleys pond).

Protected Wild-Life – Great Crested Newts

In the ponds on the site, and in the large Travellers Lane Pond which directly adjoins the site (known as Bunchleys Pond), there are great crested newts, which are a European protected species, which it is illegal to disturb. The European species mitigation licensing specialist for Natural England says that “there are stringent criteria to gain a licence to move the animals , one of which is that developers must prove that there is no suitablealternative to what is being proposed. We are very reluctant to encourage movement of newts over any great distance”.

From Mr. M. J. Russell

69, Moffats Lane

Brookmans Park

Hatfield

Herts

AL9 7RT