The Secretary of State has considered carefully all the representations before him. On the basis of the submissions received, he is of the view that there are no substantive issues which require the Inquiry to be re-opened and he has therefore decided that he is in a position to re-determine the appeal on the basis of all the evidence and representations now before him… The Secretary of State will issue his decision in this case on or before 5 April 2012.
This is the bald wording of the official letter just received by me as one of the witnesses at the most recent Public Inquiry into the Helioslough proposal to build a lorry terminal at Park Street.
So yet again we are in an end-game and one that looks pretty final.
It all now depends on one man, Eric Pickles, and the advice he receives from his departmental lawyers. Will he uphold his previous decision to overturn the Inspector’s recommendation that the terminal should be allowed? – which was then challenged in court by Helioslough on a legal technicality.
Or will he cave in?
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Tags:Colnbrook·freight terminal·Helioslough·Park Street·Radlett·St Albans·St Albans Civic Society·STRiFE
Last week I attended the presidential lecture by Donald Munro at the Arc and Arc (the St Albans and Hertfordshire Architectural and Archaeological Society). All newly elected presidents give a lecture. Donald chose as his topic the history of printing and publishing in St Albans up to the end of the nineteenth century.
Not many people know that St Albans had the third printing press in England after Caxton’s Westminster press and a press at Oxford. The St Albans press was set up in 1479 and housed in the school, then part of the Abbey. One of the earliest printers was in fact described as “the St Albans schoolmaster”.
It was the first printing press in England to do three-colour printing – black, red and blue. It was also the first to have a printer’s mark – now a legal necessity for any book or publication.
The most significant early book produced at St Albans was the famous “Book of Hawking” – written in English with beautiful woodblock illustrations. Published some time around 1486, its full title was “The Boke of St Albans: Containing Treatises on Hawking, Hunting and Coat-Armour.”
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Tags:Abbey·Arc and Arc·Book of Hawking·father of the chapel origin·printing·SAHAAS·St Albans·St Albans School
Going through my father’s papers, we discovered a poem – ‘The Crypto Linguist – pre doughnut days’ – written only last November about and for him by James Crowden. It so perfectly encapsulates all that my father was. James very kindly read it at yesterday’s funeral service.
(The “doughnut” of the title is the new GCHQ building at Cheltenham to which they moved after my father retired.)
He offers me red wine and an olive on a stick.
His narrow terraced house
Beneath the old viaduct and opposite the chapel
Nicely tucked away where no one will ever find him.
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Tags:Bletchley Park·crypto linguist·GCHQ·Ian Walkington·James Crowden
In 2008 Nick Clegg came to the Sopwell House Hotel in St Albans to make one of his first speeches as newly elected Liberal Democrat leader. The occasion was the annual Guardian Public Services Summit.
He chose to concentrate on the inadequacies of service provision for the mentally ill. It was not an obvious crowd-puller for a new leader and therefore provided an interesting perspective on Nick as a rather unusual politician. I had to meet him at the station and drive him to the venue – no ministerial cars then.
The audience were struck by his passion on this issue and that he should have chosen such a relatively unsexy subject. Their reception was warm, but doubtless they thought that this was yet another set of noble aspiration from a third party leader who would never have the opportunity to deliver on them.
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Tags:mental health·Nick Clegg·Sopwell House Hotel·St Albans·time to change
The planned HS2 route does not go through St Albans constituency, although two other main line railways do – the West Coast mainline and the Midland mainline. So I am not being nimby in the expressing doubts about the merits of the HS2 proposal.
I don’t think that ultra high speed rail makes much sense in a crowded island. We are not France with its huge empty swathes of agricultural land.
And with increasingly good broadband access on the move, one of the main arguments for HS2 that it helps business people also feels suspect. Many business people appreciate train journey time as a chance to catch up on e-mail and reading, using increasingly sophisticated mobile handheld devices.
This is not to say that we do not need more rail capacity. The Chilterns may not excape unscathed.
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I am quoted in a story published today on the BBC News website investigating which is the most expensive rail journey in the UK – see http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16390608. I have always argued that St Albans must be up there at the top based on comparisons with other commuter stations at a similar distance from their London terminal – and indeed other cities with rail commuter links in the UK. (For example Burntisland is a similar distance from Edinburgh as St Albans is from London, but the Fife commuters pay 40 percent less).
The figures quoted in today’s BBC story seem to bear out my claim with St Albans annual season tickets coming in at 31 pence per mile travelled.
Of course there are the oddities – the absurdly expensive Heathrow Express and the infamous tube journey from Covent Garden to Leicester Square which was always supposed to be more expensive per distance covered than Concorde. My concern is for standard commuter journeys which people have to use every day.
As I told the BBC, we are paying Rolls Royce prices but not getting the Rolls Royce. I welcome any thoughts on the appropriate car model which best describes the Thameslink experience!
PS I blogged before Christmas about my meeting with rail minister Norman Baker, where I put on the table a dossier compiled by two local commuters on their recent daily experiences of First Capital Connect. Norman promised to pass it to Tim O’Toole, chief executive of First Group, the parent company of FCC. This has resulted in a five page letter of explanation from Mr O’Toole which Norman Baker forwarded to me today. When I have digested its contents, I will report on them here.
Tags:FCC·First Capital Connect·rail fares·Sandy Walkington·St Albans·Thameslink·Tim O'Toole
Welcome to 2012 – strangely uncold, nastily damp. The economic forecast is as glum as the weather. And since “it’s the economy, stupid”, we had better buckle up for a bumpy ride.
We certainly should not seek to talk – or write – ourselves into a new great depression. But the world is facing profound economic challenges, and it is increasingly apparent that those in charge of the international financial system, however much they are trying to do their best, are flying pretty blind.
[Who was it who said that if every cloud has a silver lining, pilots should be very worried?]
We are also living in “interesting” global political times as the next stages of the arab spring work through. There are new and unusual stirrings of unrest in Russia. The global balance of power continues to shift away from Western Europe and North America, with Brazil now the latest country to surpass the UK in the size of its economy.
Facing up to these challenges won’t be easy, but we are far more likely to come through unscathed if we seek international co-operation, apply principles of solidarity at home and abroad, and promote a green agenda for the long term.
Happy New Year.
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I am indebted to the informative regular newsletter from the local branch of the Association of Passenger Transport Users for alerting me that the Department for Transport has formally asked for expressions of interest in running the new Thameslink rail franchise from 2013.
What this means is that they have issued an “OJEU Notice” – ie it has been advertised in the Official Journal of the European Union, as is mandatory for all public procurement.
This minimum seven-year franchise will:
- include all services that are currently operated by the First Capital Connect (FCC) franchise from September 2013;
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Tags:Abellio·APTU·Association of Passenger Transport Users·FCC·First Capital Connect·Thameslink franchise
We rattled across a lot of country on tonight’s BBC Three Counties Drivetime with Roberto Perrone. My fellow panellists were Tom Shaw, a longstanding Labour councillor in Luton, and Darren Isted, editor of the Comet newspapers in North Herts.
The first question was about former Labour minister Lord West’s call to send “a submarine to stick it up ‘em” in response to the decision by a group of Latin American countries to ban ships flying the Falklands flag from their ports.
It is odd how warmongering the modern Labour Party has become ever since Tony Blair got a taste for it. Fellow panellist Cllr Shaw was gung-ho for defending the Falklands, without the faintest idea of how we would do it. The recent Conservative defence cuts mean that mounting an armada similar to the one launched by Mrs Thatcher is frankly fanciful.
Nor is it likely that we would get the same covert assistance from a post-Pinochet Chile or from a United States led by Barack Obama.
This is one case where Churchill’s dictum that jaw-jaw is better than war-war is wholly correct. We cannot single-handedly guarantee the integrity of the Falklands indefinitely. Only the international community can do that and they will expect to see some sensible negotiations on ways forward between ourselves and Argentina.
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Tags:BBC Three Counties Radio·Roberto Perrone
St Albans saw a world first on Friday with the inaugural “curryoke”, courtesy of St Albans District Liberal Youth. The venue was Fleetville Community Centre. The delicious curry came from 
The Fleetville Community Centre didn’t know what had hit it. I hope this becomes an annual fixture, do check out the St Albans Liberal Democrat website for information.