April 28th, 2009
Taxpayer foots bill for a Road Scheme that cannot work
As Dorset County Council are busy wrecking Ancient Woodland in Two Mile Coppice, destroying ancient trees, hundreds of years old in preparation for a few weeks in the summer of 2012, I thought it was worth re-capping on a few salient points made by Rebecca Lush in March 2007. She delivered a brilliant speech to the seemingly deaf ears of the DCC Planning Committee.
Explaining Natural England’s objections to the Weymouth Relief Roacd scheme, Rebecca Lush pointed out that the organization is a statutory environmental body with a duty to protect Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, including investigating proposed road schemes. She emphasized that with a limited budget Natural England could ill afford to object to road schemes unnecessarily.
Natural England contracted out the examination and analysis of the Weymouth Relief Road scheme to the research body Transport Research Laboratory. Their findings were that ‘the traffic case for the scheme did not add up – that the road simply would not work, by dumping more traffic into the town. It would actually increase congestion in Weymouth. They advised Natural England that the scheme was therefore not a justified intrusion into the Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.’
The crucial point here is that Natural England’s objection is based upon hard analytic evidence undertaken by a professional and impartial body. The fact remains, that the findings of the TRL clearly state that ‘the road scheme will not work on its own terms.’
As Rebecca Lush very neatly concludes and not without a hint of irony; “The national taxpayer will be paying anywhere between £77m and £100m to destroy nationally important natural assets for a road scheme that won’t even work, and will increase traffic, congestions and CO2 in an era when we must do all we can to move towards a low carbon economy. This is irresponsible and unacceptable.”
I could not agree more – estimated in Dorset County Council’s Environmental Statement that the additional traffic generated will increase CO2 emissions by 2347 tonnes, it seems ludicrous that this scheme even got the go ahead, let alone that as I type this, the above mentioned Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty are being destroyed.
For more information and to read Rebecca Lush’s speech in full visit:
Bypass The Bypass website at: www.bypassthebypass.org
You can also register your support and/or make a donation at the above address