Old Knebworth calling. Can you hear us? We would jump on the Tube to come visit you down in New Knebworth, but there isn’t one. Because we are not in north London. Despite what Hertfordshire’s Local Transport Plan 4 seems to think. We are a rural community that relies on the car to get our children to Primary School, to collect our groceries, to catch a train, to visit the doctor, the dentist, the post office…
We love walking and cycling, but some of us aren’t 25 anymore, some of us have disabilities, some of us would rather not set off in the pouring rain to hang grocery bags off our handlebars or walk our seven-year-old children or grandchildren to school and then walk back in time to set off to work. Yes, sorry to spoil the dream, but some of us can’t cycle or walk to work. Some of us need roads, and parking spaces, and safe drop off points, and a choice of routes that don’t mean we’re kettled into traffic lights and traffic jams by a policy that wants to “reduce the ease and convenience of car use” (LTP4 p.30).
So yes, we know how important it is to respond by 7th November to the ‘North Hertfordshire Local Cycling and Walking Infrastructure Plan’ consultation. We just wish it was a consultation on some pro-active and imaginative solutions to Knebworth’s 19th Century road and junction infrastructure that looked to ease local traffic flow in Knebworth rather than frustrate it, and had a more realistic answer to Knebworth’s traffic problems than simply ‘don’t use cars’.
Henry Lytton Cobbold
@HenryCobboldKH