Regeneration plans for Alban Arena on the cards hertsad.co.uk - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from hertsad.co.uk Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
St Albans district council has approved its new corporate plan.
- Credit: Archant
A vision for the future of the district which will combat the climate emergency, deliver more social housing, support local businesses and provide enhanced community facilities has been approved by the council.
Alongside efforts to respond to the coronavirus pandemic, the council s top priority will be working to address the climate emergency, and the Sustainability and Climate Crisis Strategy sets out the actions to be taken locally to reach zero carbon emissions by 2030.
A meeting of the full council heard how SADC is pressing ahead with the redevelopment of the City Centre Opportunity Site – the area in and around the site of the former police station. It is also developing various plots of council-owned land in St Albans, London Colney and Harpenden to provide new homes for people on the district’s housing register, and further temporary accommodation for homeless people.
Planning permission has been given to a landmark £60 million development in a prime city centre site. St Albans City and District Council is developing the area near the Alban Arena, on the site of the city’s former police station and an NHS clinic. Three designs drawn up by architect firms were put before residents in a major public consultation last year. The most popular concept, which included a stunning commercial building adjacent to a housing block, was then chosen. Detailed plans for the design went before the council’s Planning Referrals Committee last month with permission for the work being granted.
We revealed how the traffic camera at the junction of Watson’s Walk and London Road had snapped 1,325 cars in 2019, that a fundamentalist sex education leaflet was being distributed in the city, welcomed the return of the annual St Albans pancake race, and revealed how almost 200 children across the district were left without a secondary school place. Then the first case of coronavirus was reported at Harpenden’s Davenport House Surgery, and what had seemed like a distant threat was suddenly on our doorstep.
‘Keep calm, clean and carry on.’ was the headline on March 12, referring to plans for city centre businesses to receive donations of hand sanitiser to ensure local shopping continues in the event of a coronavirus outbreak. The county’s response to the virus began stepping up following the news that a patient receiving treatment from West Herts Hospitals NHS Trust had died, and the Bishop of St Albans offered his own four golden rules to consider alongside official publ