 Thousands of people are expected to enjoy the Alban Street Festival - a free summer party - on Sunday 25 June.
We are organising the City Centre event, which runs from noon until 6pm, with St Peters Street closed to traffic to make way for an exciting programme of free entertainment including live music, fun activities and street performers.
There will also be around 100 market stalls selling takeaway food, drink and other products.
The Street Festival, returning after an enforced four-year absence, forms part of the Alban Weekend with the annual Alban Pilgrimage taking place on Saturday 24 June.
That features a parade of giant puppets to celebrate Saint Alban, Britain’s first Christian martyr. More information can be found here.
Picture: scene from the 2019 Alban Street Festival.
 Major progress has been made with the production of a Local Plan for St Albans District with a public consultation on key proposals due to start this summer.
The Local Plan will identify commercial and infrastructure developments as well as land for future housing.
A commitment to tackling the climate emergency will be at the heart of the Local Plan with new developments required to improve biodiversity and be sustainable.
Other priorities are delivering more social housing, jobs, schools, GP surgeries, public transport, cycle paths, play areas, parks and access to nature.
The LP will also be designed to grow the local economy and promote equality, inclusion and fairness.
An update on LP work is to be given to a meeting of the Council’s Planning Policy and Climate Committee on Monday 26 June.
 Actor and comedian Johnny Vegas was spotted shopping at our historic Charter Market.
Among the items he bought was a tagua nut pendant from Ecuador at the Happy Elephant stall.
Tagua has been described as vegan ivory and is boiled, dyed and polished to provide natural, plant-based jewellery.
Benidorm star Johnny, pictured centre, posed for a selfie with stall holders Alison Williams and her husband Mark.
Alison, who has been operating at the Market for a year, said: “It was great to have Johnny take a look around – he seemed to be very impressed. We love it here and the response to our business has been great.”
Alison is one of a growing number of new traders now working at the Market and you can find more details about her jewellery range on her website. You can enquire about hiring a stall here.
 We have been giving away 8,000 free trees through the Your Tree Our Future campaign to help improve the local environment.
Residents and community groups have been applying for up to five trees from nine different species for planting in gardens or other green spaces.
This is the second year in a row that we have organised the initiative along with Hertfordshire County Council.
You can still apply for free trees here, but will need to hurry as our stocks are fast running out.
The giveaway is one of more than 100 actions we are taking to tackle the climate emergency and reduce harmful emissions to net zero across the District by 2030.
A panel of senior local government figures has reviewed our operations to see if we can become more effective.
We invited the team, all from outside the Council, to undertake the Local Government Association's Corporate Peer Challenge.
In their feedback report, the panel concluded our "political and officer leadership teams are widely respected internally and externally" and that we were "absolutely viewed as a trusted systems leader in the locality and across Hertfordshire.”
The team spent four days at the Council, gathering information, talking to staff and stakeholders, and reading numerous documents to see what challenges we are facing.
They made a number of recommendations for improvements some of which have already been put into practice. An action plan for implementing the rest has been drawn up.
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 A St Albans District Community Lottery player has scooped an Apple tech bundle prize in a nationwide draw.
The lucky individual won a top-of-the-range iPhone 14 Pro along with an Apple Watch series 8.
Everyone from around the country who bought a community lottery ticket in May was put into the bonus prize draw. This month, participants could win a Sony Home Theatre Bundle which includes a smart TV and sound system.
Tickets for the lottery cost just £1 per week with a top prize of £25,000. From every £1 ticket you buy, 60p will go to a local good cause of your choosing.
A weekly draw takes place every Saturday night. - match all 6 numbers and you win the jackpot. You can buy tickets or apply to become a good cause here.
 Eight community groups and charities were boosted by £46,855 of grants from our Community Revenue Fund.
The money is intended to support their running costs at a time of high inflation and other financial challenges.
Among the recipients were Earthworks, HAWA Multicultural Services, Herts Vision Loss and Leeanna’s Wish.
Now community groups can apply for grants of between £500 to £5,000 from our Community Project Fund for 2023/24. These are for projects that help vulnerable people.
An application form together with the criteria and guidance can be found here. Applications close on Thursday 20 July.
 Councillor Anthony Rowlands, Mayor of St Albans City and District, was one of 2,000 runners who took part in the 41st St Albans Half Marathon.
It was the 39th time that Cllr Rowlands has completed the event which started and finished in Verulamium Park.
More than 5,000 runners and walkers took part in the day’s activities which also included a five kilometre race and a family fun run.
Cllr Rowlands has made All Ages Together the theme of his civic year with the aim of improving social inclusion, accessibility and wellbeing across the generations.
You can follow the Mayor on Facebook as he promotes his campaign during his year in office.
Picture: The Mayor, left in the yellow vest, at the finishing line of the 2023 St Albans Half Marathon.
 Our electoral services team will be conducting the annual household voter registration canvass from early July until the end of November.
The canvass ensures that the electoral register is kept up to date. It is important that residents make sure they can vote with local elections taking place in May next year.
Every residential property in the District will be sent an email or letter during July or August to check whether their details on the electoral register are correct.
Not all properties will be required to respond and the email or letter will advise whether your need to. If you do need to respond, please do so promptly.
Further information is available here.
 The St Albans International Organ Festival and Competitions celebrates its 60th anniversary this year.
Tickets are on sale for a wide range of performances which are held between Saturday 3 and Thursday 15 July.
The programme offers something for every music lover – solo piano, jazz and classical song, chamber ensembles, symphonic repertoire and more.
You can buy tickets from the Cathedral Box Office and find more information on the Festival website.
Open until Sunday 5 November, Weston Gallery, St Albans Museum + Gallery, Free.
Enjoying a cup of tea is a familiar moment in many peoples’ lives. In this exhibition, we will explore tea from leaf to cup including how you boil your water to the best kind of cup to use.
The exhibition also looks back at the tea houses St Albans has been home to in the past and travels across the Atlantic to a sugar plantation run by a St Albans landowner.
Talk: Spilling the Tea
St Albans Museum + Gallery, Thursday 20 July, 7pm, £10 in person, £6 zoom.
From the suffragettes to the abolition of slavery, British history is full of examples of how tea and tea culture have played a significant role in protest movements and social change. Join Danielle Cavender-Handley to discover how the nation’s favourite drink repeatedly altered and influenced the course of our history.
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Workshop: Mosaic Making
Verulamium Museum, Tuesday 25 July, sessions at 10:30am, 11:25am, 12:20pm, £7.50 per participant.
Learn how to use professional mosaic making tools to snip your glass, and even how to grout your creation. Be inspired by the Great British summer, and make a mosaic of either an ice cream, a cupcake, a rainbow or a smiley cloud.
You can book tickets and find out more about what is happening at our Museums here.
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 St Albans Healthy Hub is your free one-stop-shop for health and wellbeing information, advice and support.
You can get advice on a wide range of issues including how to manage your money, quit smoking or lose weight.
The organisations involved include Citizens Advice, Communities 1st, Mind in Mid Herts and many more. You can find more information here.
 Do you work in the voluntary, community, faith or social enterprise sectors?
If so, book your place on a Communities 1st conference on Wellbeing, Resilience and Equality on Thursday 20 July.
This will be an inspiring day of workshops, expert 1:1 advice sessions and opportunities to network with other participants.
You can register here and book your choice of advice sessions.
Love Your Bump is a Hertfordshire-wide campaign that is spreading awareness of the risks of smoking associated with pregnancy.
It offers help to enable pregnant smokers and their partners, close friends and family members to quit.
Quitting is tough, especially when you’re pregnant and having to deal with so much else going on.
The campaign will continue to reassure pregnant smokers they are not alone and specialist support is available. It also highlights the risk to the unborn baby and the benefits of quitting.
Pregnant women may be entitled to £300 of shopping vouchers if they take up support. More information is available here.
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 Just Talk is a mental health campaign to equip young people with the information they need in order to seek help when they need it.
Their latest initiative is What’s Next? which aims to help young people and their families to open up about their future concerns.
Whether it’s exams, the environment or financial problems, What’s Next? is offering a wealth of information to assist people in preparing for future events.
You can find more about the campaign along with details of the support that is available here.
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