Councillor Malcolm Cowan saves our pavements

10.51.41am GMT Wed 1st Mar 2006

County Councillor Malcolm Cowan

In 2005, Malcolm Cowan was elected to the County Council, so now at last Welwyn Hatfield have a representative there. We now have representatives on Parish Councils, Town Councils, District Councils and now at last on the County Council. As we reported last time, the Tories at County Hall planned to borrow £100m to bring forward road and footpath maintenance, and bring many of them up to standard. This would have been spent over 5 years.

The idea was first proposed by the LibDems a couple of years ago, and pooh-poohed at the time. Now the government have withdrawn another slab of money that used to be paid to Hertfordshire, making the plan unaffordable.

So next year, £10 m will be found from the council's own resources. After that, who knows? As part of the way forward, the highways people wanted all resurfacing of footpaths to be using tarmac. Malcolm Cowan intervened to propose that in Conservation Areas, (including most of Handside), footpaths should remain as slabs unless a change was agreed locally. 'Paving slabs are part and parcel of the design of the town. We cannot have them swept away without proper consideration. I am pleased that this was agreed' he said. Malcolm has also been trying to get patches of tarmac in the town centre restored as slabs. 'No-one gave permission for the spot repairs to be of a different material. Yet a simple restoration has taken over a year. "You really do need perseverance to get a result." said Malcolm.