8.07.05:
Many people sent a letter to Lancashire County Council (LCC) in response to the consultation on the draft Local Transport Plan. Most of them were opposed to the Heysham M6 Link Road, and gave their reasons why.
LCC has replied to them with a “standard” letter, which complained about “inaccurate and incomplete information being circulated about the proposed link road; for instance, the level of support for the Northern route in the MORI survey was 44% rising to 52%, when given further information, not 16% as has been quoted in many letters.”
LCC places great reliance on this 2001 MORI survey, because it has failed to undertake a proper public consultation on the plans as they now stand. But it uses the results selectively (“cherry picking” to you and me). It claims that 79% supported a link road. But the facts are that, for the Northern route:
16% strongly supported, and 28% “tended” to support
When further information was given, biased towards the northern route, that 44% went up to 52%.
Yet it does not quote the result, from the same survey, that only 15% wanted to build more roads as the main local transport priority. 42% of local people however wanted to improve public transport and other alternatives to the car. 71% of people wanted an end to the areas congestion as the main transport priority. In 2005 people can see that the Heysham M6 Link road is not designed with in town congestion relief as its purpose.
Nor does it admit that the choice that it offered in 2001, was between the Northern route, the Western route, or nothing. But we believe there are many alternative transport solutions that people would choose if they were investigated by the Council and offered to the people.
When the MORI poll was conducted, they showed the public the map from the 2001 LCC public consultation document. For the Northern route, the depiction of the road is sketchy and misleading. The map shows the dual carriageway road with the same thickness of line as the single carriageway Western route. Furthermore the road at Torrisholme and Beaumont Gate is inaccurately represented. Thus based on this map, the public could not accurately answer questions on the effect of the road on the natural environment nor the affect on those living nearby. The map is therefore materially flawed and it would be unsafe to rely on the results of a poll based on it.
It is only since the production of the detailed map in 2005 that the public can see how intrusive and damaging the road would be. So it is no wonder that there is now massive public opposition to the plan. In 2001 28% of people may have “tended” to support the Northern route but since LCC’s low key, “technical” exhibitions and Transport Solutions for Lancaster and Morecambe’s “Alternative Exhibition” support for the road has slumped to 10% at the most, as evidenced by TSLM’s poll. Much of this can be put down to TSLM’s artists impressions of the road and our model of the road at Torrisholme, which helped greatly in putting the road in its proper context. The public is entitled to ask why it was left to the amateurs to produce this crucial material?
The public opposition to the road, and the many letters against it in the LTP consultation, have surprised the Council, and it has been obliged to take note.
We must keep up the opposition, and the letters to our elected representatives and to the press, to let them know how we feel. Let us make it crystal clear that they are pursuing this road against the clearly expressed wishes of the people.
TSLM