AN AGREEMENT has been made to look into the ways traffic problems can be reduced and safety improved on the A5183 road through Park Street.

Residents met with members of the Hertfordshire Constabulary and the Highways Partnership to discuss the long-standing dangers caused by lorries using the street as a through road.

At the St Albans Community Safety Consultation Forum held on Wednesday, October 17, dangerous driving on Park Street was one of the main items on the agenda and Mr Stuart Walmsley, Highways Partnership Manager, said that together with the police, they will look at a number of ways to try to get lorries to slow down.

Members of Loops (Lorries Out Of Park Street), a group of people who live in the area who are calling for action to be taken against lorries that use the road, turned out in force once again to demand that something more be done.

Earlier this year a number of traffic calming measures were introduced along Park Street.

At the meeting, however, Loops organiser, Mrs Karen Du Gard, said: "We need police to look at the speeding problem and the fact that you can consistently see lorry drivers with a mobile phone clasped to their ear, and not paying enough attention to the road."

One of Loops' main concerns is that the area is not only residential but that it is well used by schoolchildren attending Park Street Junior School on Branch Road.

Mrs Du Gard said that the stretch of road outside The Red Cow pub has been the site of two incidents in the last year alone, with two childen already having been knocked over.

Other residents who attended the meeting recalled stories of lorries mounting pavements and wing mirrors on parked cars being hit with alarming frequency by passing articulated lorries.

Many of the residents in the area are united with Loops in calling for a by-pass so that lorries be directed along an alternative route, but for now they say that extra measures are needed along the road itself.

On Wednesday, October 17, a representative from Hertfordshire police said they would look into getting fixed speed cameras installed, but added existing measures had already helped to reduce the number of speeding lorries in the last few months.

Mr Walmsley said: "I'm sure that they have worked and that it's just a small minority of drivers that are still speeding."

October 22, 2001 19:47

By Claire Ling