Mears have agreed to put in a new kitchen into the Pomegranate Café in Welwyn Garden City after I suggested this as a project. Pomegranate Café have moved across from Woodhall Community Centre across to the Community Building attached to the Catholic Church.  This building is situated in Woodhall Lane. It is next to the nursery School.  If you visit the café it might be best to park in the Catholic Church car park which is round the corner in Cole Green Lane / Hollybush Lane.  The church is right at the junction, so I am mentioning both roads as that makes more sense. At the moment the café are sharing the kitchen with the centre, but it will be great for them to have their own kitchen as it means they don’t have to go across the hall and up the stairs to reach it.  The new kitchen will be behind the counter and this will be a lot more convenient.  Also, the centre could do with both kitchens because the hall is often in use for separate functions for which a kitchen is required.

The task and finish group finally made their recommendations on the Stanborough poplars. This went to Environment Overview and Scrutiny Committee and finally should be going to cabinet this week at a meeting on Tuesday. Read the rest of this entry. Read the rest of this entry.

It is now ages since I posted, but I hope to make up for that.

Direct action by residents of Panshanger has shown how the small guy can still win and get things done.

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Despite a packed meeting attended by at least 50 members of the public, and reporters, the council has decided to fell the trees in the south car park.  In the north car park, only those trees requiring immediate management would be felled.  A number of trees that could not be assessed due to the ivy covering them would have the ivy removed and the assessment would be done.

8 members of the public asked questions at the cabinet meeting. Read the rest of this entry.

The end is nigh!  On Tuesday the council are going to take a decision regarding the 700 odd trees in the Stanborough Lakes car parks.  We think these trees should be saved.  They are healthy and majestic and only a few are diseased.  You may have followed the saga up to now.  If not, see some of my earlier posts.  Judging from the papers that have been put out, the trees in the south car park are most at risk of felling. Read the rest of this entry.

I just thought I should add a geo-referenced model as well.  This one, I believe, is an image of some building linked with Lincoln’s Inn fields or thereabouts.  The buildings can be added by hovering them in the air and then landing them, just like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz as if taken up by a hurricane or some other twirly thingy like they have in the States, and then dumped somewhere else. Or, it is possible to model exising buildings.

Above is an example of a non-geo-referenced model. This is a figure you can place alongside your geo-referenced design model in order to begin to populate your imaginary town with imaginary people who might be representative of the community you might expect in your town.  A geo-referenced model has a geographical location. Read on to learn more about it.

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Yesterday was a community day, and this was quite interesting.  There are four historic churches in the town, and these have more or less active congregations.  There are many ways in which churches are involved in community life, and one interesting idea came up from Berkhamstead.  The church in Berkhamstead bought up the local post office and housed it inside the church, along with a coffee shop and other community services.  One idea that Andrés mentioned was a static post office where the post is dropped off and placed in individual post boxes.  Everyone has to come in and collect their post, rather than having it delivered by a postman.  This encourages walking and a bit of community spirit, as people can collect post for neighbours who are sick or elderly, thus making sure that everyone in the community is OK.  It provides an excuse to knock on the door and find out how people are. 

I missed the morning session and hoped to go to the afternoon session, but only arrived towards the end.  I managed to get some input from Simon Archer, as I mentioned in my previous post, and also from a Mr Cameron.  This is what I understood from what was being discussed.  First of all, there is a plan to make a safer and more interesting crossing from the rail station to Hatfield House.  As I mentioned in an earlier post, there is a plan to slow down the traffic, partly to make it possible for people to stop off in the old town, partly to make it safer for pedestrians.  The idea is that if the entrance were make more imposing, people would get more of a grand feel of having arrived at the Hatfield House experience.  There was also some suggestion that there would be a central reservation in the new slowed down road, and that the statue outside the huge imposing gates could be moved to the centre of the road.  This would mean it would be possible to show off the beautiful and imposing gates.

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I missed the morning session due to another commitment, but eventually went to the last part of the afternoon session. Fortunately I met Simon Archer, who had been in the morning session sorting out the buses for the borough.  Simon is a top brass in Arriva bus company.  He is a Lib Dem like me, and that’s of course how I know him.  He has done a lot of campaigning around the place as well.  One thing we know is that a new bus station is planned for Hatfield.  So that is already being done.  However, it needs re-planning or at least co-ordinating with changes that may take place in the road system.   These are being looked at in the Charrette, and I will come onto this in a minute.  At the moment, every bus that comes along needs to do a 360 degree turn.  This is somewhat problematic as the same entrance is used for both cars and buses.  The plan is to have six stops, instead of the existing two.  Some of these will require the buses to cut across but not turn right round, so that the number of buses having to do the total loop will be greatly reduced.  In addition, the car park and bus station could be re-organised slightly so that the cars use a different exit.  More about cars in the next section, on road transport.