Schoolchildren open a new toucan crossing at Jarman Park

Jarman Park is where Hemel goes to the cinema, the snow centre and the retail park. It is also a place you reach, too often, by car, because the walking routes were an afterthought.

A new toucan crossing: pedestrian and cycle: is now open, unveiled with local schoolchildren. The council presents it as part of a wider connections project between neighbourhoods, shops and leisure.

That is the right frame. A single crossing will not undo a town plan organised around the Magic Roundabout and the dual carriageway. It does show what “15-minute Hemel” looks like in metal and belisha beacons: unglamorous, and more useful than another strategy PDF.

If HGC is to be a garden community rather than a bolt-on estate, this is the standard the new northern neighbourhoods will have to meet on day one, not twenty years later.