The Flyer
Bishop’s Stortford Labour Party
It’s official.
Driving in
Stortford is bad
for your health.
Nitrogen
Dioxide (NO2)
levels, at
the Hockerill
junction daily
crawl are the
second highest
in the East of
Natalie Russell
England, double
the legal limit. NO2 gases cause lung
tissue damage, low birth weight
babies, increased early death rates and
smog. Stortford smog is caused mostly
by vehicle emissions, particularly
overheating engines, common in the
slow, if you are lucky, Hockerill traffic.
Councillor McAndrew, with Highways
responsibility for Stortford, said little
can be done to an old market town
road system. It was up to motorists
to realise they had to make fewer car
journeys and use public transport.
Undoubtedly true but still a blatant
piece of blame shifting. The East Herts
(EHDC) & County (HCC) councils have
done more than their share in creating
the congestion. Bus subsidies have
been cut drastically year on year by
austerity policies with considerable
reductions in routes and schedules.
As for saying they cannot do anything
when HCC actually created the one
way system. They set the prioritisation
of certain traffic to the disadvantage
of others such as traffic leaving
Jackson Square car park, and Hockerill
Street mini roundabout which causes
much of the Hockerill lights queues
backing up. If the one way system was
co-ordinated with its entry roads then
the flow rates could be much higher,
queues shorter and our lungs a bit
healthier.
Let’s be clear who is to blame for the
fiasco of the Jackson Square car park
exit. Initially designed, with HCC, for
a single exit. It made exiting the car
park from the ‘please let me out’ exit
slow to impossible when there was
significant one way system traffic.
After a year of pressure on EHDC/
HCC they eventually agreed to open
a second exit from the car park,
which has reduced the problem but
it still gridlocks regularly at peak
loading even with only one car park
level exiting at the ‘oh lord please let
me out’. Seven years of disgruntled
shoppers complaints, and lost trade
to shops, yet HCC have still not taken
any action to fix the problem. The
solution is obviously shared access for
the exiting traffic, say by traffic lights,
rather than total preference for the
one way system traffic.
This would also allow the car park to
switch to ‘pay on exit’ which town
traders have been requesting for years,
so shoppers do not have to rush back
to their car and us drivers only paying
for the time we actually stay.
It would have economic benefits all
round for increased shop turnover and
less time wasted by us all in traffic
congestion. The parking hassle has
put many people off shopping in the
town to the point where there are 8
empty shops on the main shopping
street alone and too numerous charity
shops.
Natalie Russell
Bishop’s Stortford & Sawbridgeworth
Labour Party – Membership secretary
Please contact me at stortford.
[email protected]
Local Matters with Mione Goldspink
The discussion and debate about
the EU Referendum is now well
underway. As a Liberal Democrat, I am
in favour of Great Britain staying IN
the European Union. I do believe that
we are stronger together, with other
European countries as our partners,
than when we stand alone. We have
much more influence over world
affairs when we are part of a bigger
bloc than we would ever have as just a
little off-shore island. I do not pretend
that the EU is perfect - far from it but I strongly believe that we have a
better chance of bringing about reform
if we are inside the club, rather than
being on the outside.
There are many excellent reasons for
voting to stay IN the EU, but I will list
only 5 of them:
1. Prosperity: - there are millions of
jobs which are linked to our trade
with other EU countries, and over
200,000 businesses. Almost 45% of
the goods and services which we
sell abroad go to other EU members
and 53% of the goods we import
come from the EU -exempt from
tariffs, which makes the goods
cheaper for us as consumers.
2. Freedom to travel and work across
all the member states. This opens
up fantastic opportunities for
many different British people, and
it benefits the Scientific Research
community enormously.
3. Protecting the environment and
combating Climate Change.
Greenhouse gases are no respecters
of national borders – these
problems can be tackled much more
efficiently when we work together.
4. Security: - We are stronger together
in our fight against terrorists as
we can share information more
quickly and efficiently. The European
Arrest warrant also brings benefits
in catching criminals and rapidly
bringing t [H