Road to nowhere in Welwyn Hatfield

News editor Chris Lennon continues the WHT's series of features focusing on different aspects of the core strategy – which is a blueprint that will steer development in Welwyn Hatfield until 2026. This week: transport

News editor Chris Lennon continues the WHT's series of features focusing on different aspects of the core strategy - which is a blueprint that will steer development in Welwyn Hatfield until 2026. This week: transport

YOU don't need to be Einstein to work out that Welwyn Hatfield's transport network is heading for meltdown.

One commute to work along the A1(M), or standing crammed in a train carriage, would tell anyone that.

But at least the core strategy accepts the main north-south routes through the borough - the motorway and the East Coast Main Line - are pretty chocka.

There are "capacity constraints" on both of these, the paperwork declares, matter-of-factly. You don't say!

The road network running east-west across the borough fares little better, with the A414 - especially towards St Albans - equally congested.

With the borough having to find room for an extra 15,000 homes in the coming years, the situation is surely only going to get worse.

Not if the powers-that-be have their way.

For the Government seems hell-

bent on extracting as much money from motorists as possible - through car tax hikes (especially on less 'green' vehicles), high duty on petrol, and schemes like London's congestion charge being talked about for other cities.

We're told all the time how we should be looking at alternative modes of travel, such as public transport.

Not a bad idea, if these alternatives were up to much cop. But more often than not, they're not.

Anyway, national and regional planning guidelines all point the way towards reducing our dependency on our motors.

But the truth is you're never going to get people to give up their cars.