The Forum

As Chair of the Kingsmead Neighbourhood Plan (KNP) I am extremely excited to announce that we have just received news that the KNP Regulation 16 submission has just been accepted by East Herts District Council as meeting the requirement for Regulation 16 submission. So, big thank you to everyone that has helped us to get to this point! You know who you are! Those that delivered leaflets/surveys and all the other bits and pieces during a global pandemic; those who sat through long working party meetings, slaved over drafts of policies and the rest of the plans, researched information to support the policies in the plan. Those that proof read, edited and suggested amendments. Those that learnt how to draw maps on a new bit of software (we had no mapmakers at the outset) and produced all the maps to include the plan. The photographers that let us use their work. Everyone that feedback opinions, added in information and chatted at formal consultations and also by hailing the chair and discussing issues in and around Kingsmead. Thank you everyone for the hard graft to date and thank you to Kingsmead Residents Association for taking forward the actions in our Action Plan with some actions already complete. Thank you thank you thank you one and all. What's Next? So, once the Regulation 16 consultation has been completed the KNP will be submitted to and Independent Examiner for review (probably after a few tweaks). Once reviewed and passed by the examiner (probably after a few more tweaks) it will then be subject to a referendum where every adult in Kingsmead can vote. Assuming it gets a majority (ie over 50%) voting yes then it is passed and becomes part of the planning regulations for Kingsmead. So, what did people and organisations say on Regulation 14? The file with all the feedback along with the changes that have been made as a result can be downloaded below Ok, so where's the plan then? While all of the plan is important it is a long document so please make sure you read the policies (all in green boxes) and also the Action Plan (in the appendices) as these are the most important sections. Kingsmead Residents Association have been working on implementing various of the actions from the Action Plan with assistance from local councillors, the Herts and Middx Wildlife Trust and others, but it is over 70 items long so they do have their work cut out! There is still work going on in the background to research and track down particularly elusive bits of information but all of our main sources have been found, read and implemented. Supporting information for the plan can all be found at the following URL - just tap on the post and all information and references for the Neighbourhood Plan can be downloaded https://www.knphertford.org/references

When KNP undertook the Regulation 14 consultation with various councils, government and non government organisations and even The Coal Board we received comments and instructions on how we should change the policies and information contained in the 'Regulation 14' draft neighbourhood plan. One of the comments from East Herts District Council (EHDC) was an instruction to remove our policy to re-evaluate the Air Quality Management Area (AQMA) from the current area (A414 - centre of town) by assessing whether Ware Road and Stansted Road should also be included within the AQMA. The reasoning behind this was simple, EHDC didn't think that this was an item that could be addressed by development, even though with more dwellings in Hertford bringing more cars there will be more pollution. Coincidentally Karen, a stalwart committee member of Kingsmead Residents Association had found a website that publishes data on how polluted the air is around every dwelling in the UK based on real data and a tool developed by Imperial College, London and had passed on the website. I promptly put in my address and was utterly shocked to find that I live in a house that is in the 80th percentile for pollution, ie only 20% of the dwellings in the UK are in a more air polluted place and the air exceeds World Health Organisation limits set for three pollutants. Other KRA members high results. Surely this can't be right we thought? So, we checked against data that is available for Hertford it checks out. So, why is this important? Because of the high risk to health; the pollutants we are being exposed to increase asthma, cancer, dementia (1) and cardiovascular risks to everyone living and working where these levels are high: After a bit of intense work we collated figures for our area and these are below, and it turns out that 80th percentile is one of the lower figures, but if you want to see how polluted is your address? Then have a look at the tool at https://www.addresspollution.org/ With detailed figures as below: So, what can we do about this? There are many solutions but primarily we need to have less traffic on the roads. Everyone is different and we all have a different ability to do things; so it is about looking at what you can do with the physical, mental and financial resources available to you. If you can chose one or more of the following: Where you are able to choose to walk/cycle for local journeys, or use public transport more. Maybe think about an ebike if you can't face walking up the steep hill on Stansted Road let alone peddling up it....... Help KNP and KRA campaign for better public transport, more frequent and less costly . Also help out our campaigns for more pedestrian routes (ideally off road to reduce exposure to pollutants) and segregated cycle routes to enable people to use active travel options Maybe consider moving to becoming a one or no car family ; or think about moving to an electric car. .... If the engine on your car doesn't cut off automatically when stationary think about turning the engine off when you can...... Plant a hedge! Sounds mad but hedges can reduce pollution from traffic by up to 50% (weblinks below (3)) Get a moss wall - just a few square metres of moss wall (living not the petrified ones!) will remove large amounts of pollution including Nitrous Oxide and small particles. Moss walls also assist to mitigate climate change as apparently just 12 square metres of moss will use as much carbon dioxide as 275 mature trees (ie a small forest). Just wondering whether we can campaign for mosscreting (a type of concrete that supports moss growth) Gascoigne Way car park. Ah, it's outside of Kingsmead............but the A10 viaduct supports are in Kingsmead........ Support the inclusion of assessing whether Ware Road and Stansted Road should be included in the AQMA for Hertford. Lobby your local councillors to reduce air pollution - this goes for all councils as the pollution comes from roads (Hertfordshire) but is exacerbated by developments (East Herts) and may be caused by council events (Hertford Town). Is this a large problem? Yes. But it can be tackled providing we all work together REFERENCES: (1) - Article in the New Scientist - https://www.newscientist.com/article/2330483-air-pollution-likely-to-be-causing-dementia-say-uk-science-advisers/ (2) Existing AQMA map (apologies on quality but the links on the EHDC AQMA page to the maps appear to be broken atm. We will replace this with a better quality photo once available) (3) Hedges to reduce air pollution https://www.rhs.org.uk/science/articles/super-cotoneaster (4) https://www.dw.com/en/stuttgart-builds-moss-covered-wall-to-fight-air-pollution/a-37866760

As you know KNP has been working away to collate the various comments from statutory consultees and residents and incorporate them into a revised Neighbourhood Plan. One of the requests from East Herts District Council (EHDC) was to move the boundary of the Local Green Space that incorporates the 3,500 to 5,000 year old bowl barrow monument on Birdie Way/The Knoll. Further enquiry revealed that this was because EHDC had plans to build addition parking spaces for the Pinehurst Community Centre on the site of the barrow by digging up the ancient monument. This carparking would allow people to drive to the community centre so that it can be used by more people that live further way. After much deliberation the KNP working group decided that we didn't want to move the boundary for a number of reasons, not least because this is a rare monument in this area and there are plenty of grass verges that could be changed for use as car parking without destroying a scheduled monument. At the KNP Steering Group, we were instructed to prepare a paper on why we didn't think that the boundary should be moved; you can download this below. After submitting the paper to EHDC KNP were informed that the barrow is not only significant in East Herts but has national significance because of the size of it. If you have any queries or comments on the contents of the paper please email us. KRA are working on the installation of an information board to the barrow but, at the moment, we are struggling to find a location as we were refused permission to site the sign in the location preferred by the Historic England expert. But, we are working on alternatives