Underground in Fleetville

No, not THE Underground, as in an extension of the Bakerloo Line.  Underground, or under ground, as in below the surface.  Rooms below ground floor level – cellars – became of strategic interest to St Albans Council at the start of World War Two.  It recommended that, where possible, they were strengthened for use as small air-raid shelters to protect the occupiers, and if necessary, visitors to the address.  The County Council had provided underground shelters at Central School (now Fleetville Junior School), Fleetville School (under the recreation ground) and at the County Boys' School (now Verulam).  Camp School also received an underground shelter.  Privately, Ballito Hosiery Mills had extensive underground shelters on its site where Morrison's is today.

The war disappeared into the past and life returned to an approximate normality.  Eventually motoring again became popular – once we could afford to avoid exporting vehicles.  During the sixties and seventies various arrangements were made to ensure it was possible to park somewhere close to people's homes, but it became increasingly challenging to find spaces to park along Hatfield Road.  Even today, we might wonder where we would be without the extensive surface car park at Morrison's.

Apart from tinkering with a few yellow lines and a bit of one-hour parking, it is easy to imagine that no-one has given much thought to the congestion along Hatfield Road created by parking bottlenecks, particularly in the narrow section on the Crown approach and outside Bycullah Terrace.

However, there was some beavering away below the surface!  Design Team Partnerships in Clifton Street produced a plan for their client City Car Parks for an underground car park in Hatfield Road.  Perhaps we should remember the year; it was 1988.  The fact that there is no underground car park in Hatfield Road will inform us that the plan did not proceed; or to use another phrase it didn't get through planning.

Taking a leaf from the council in a precedent set in 1939, the proposal was to create a substantial car park under the rec – yes, under – and then restore the surface, replant, and restore the children's playground.  Apart from the temporary upheaval of removing so much spoil, there would have been a number of permanent reminders of what would lay beneath, in the form of light wells and six staircases linking the car deck to the park.  They would have been screened with shrub planting, meaning that much of the rec near Hatfield Road would not have been available for recreational games.

Of course, it is unlikely to have been a free car park, although the promoters did suggest local residents could have used it for their cars overnight, and it would have provided a "valuable reinforced space in case of disaster."  So that was reassuring!

Now let's imagine that it had been constructed.  Would, today, it be thought of as a safe space, especially in the evenings and overnight?  Given a choice would drivers prefer to use the (chargeable)   underground car park or the free Morrison's car park?  And what kind of junction, so close to Morrison's, would link the ramps to Hatfield Road?  This could have become Fleetville's major accident zone, and so soon after the County Council's attempt to remove that status by widening the road by eating into the rec in the process.